The greatest compliment a writer can be given is that a story and character hold a reader spellbound. I'm caught up in the story writing and I miss a good deal of sleep thinking about it and working out the plot points.
It's always fun to walk down the street with or behind a really beautiful woman, for no reason other than to see how the world reacts to them.
I think there is a great difference, in that when the poet is reading you get the whole personality of the person, especially if he's a good reader. Whereas a person just sitting gets what he puts into it.