Poets were master entertainers, aiming at producing pleasure
Pleasure should be a means to an aim (directs one towards satisfying one’s identity), but pleasure as the goal is not genuine (meaningless pleasure, which is our modern conception of pleasure)
For Plato, then, pleasures can be false, and poets do not provide genuine pleasure.
By aiming at appearances, the thing the poet aims for cannot serve as a genine telos.
A shoemaker does not have to constantly vary his output to stay satisfied, but the poet has to keep changing is stories to keep people interested, because his pleasure is fleeting / they’re not actually satisfying (only seeming to satisfy us).
The difference between going to the gym with the intention of becoming strong vs the intention of going to the gym just to feel like one is a gym person.