The difference between the speaker of a poem and a poet

The difference between the speaker of a poem and the poet is simple. The poet is the one writing the poem and the speaker is the one in the poem. The speaker lives in the words that the poet created. The speaker tells the story while the poet wrote it. Think of it this way, the speaker is the actor speaking the dialogue and the poet is the screenwriter. The screenwriter writes the movie, they make it come to life in a book. While the actor makes it come to life on the screen and in our minds.