reading, writing....

Is it more important to be a reader or a writer?

From a preliminary standpoint, without having read much of what I have learned into the question or concept I would say that both are equal and necessary for each other to survive....even if one holds a diary, they must actively read over it on paper and in their psychs.
If I were a Romantic, specifically a follower of Emerson, I would ascribe to his beliefs of authorship. Reading as he explains in "The American Scholar" it takes away from the individual intuition.
If I followed Eliot's school of Formalism I would believe, in a sense, that reading is more important based on the ideas of tradition and the poem carrying it's own "weight", meaning and emotion.
I understand writing to be a form of bringing emotions and words together, allowing readers to experience what the poem presents. During class when we discussed the poem, "We Wear the Mask" it didn't bother or change the way I looked at the poem when I found out who the author was. I did not interpret it to be society or a large group of people as the subject, nor did I perceive it to be about slavery. I simply looked at the words used in the poem and the way they described the pain of being hidden or fake. In this sense, writing and reading took an equal amount of importance in regards to this poem.
So, the point that I am trying to get at-or at least scratch the surface of is both reading and writing require a certain amount of importance and caution. If you take on over the other they will suffer. Realizing that reading a piece will further your education and grasp of language will help you become a better writer. And writing is equally important because it allows for intellectual growth and interpretation of life and/or emotions. If writing were neglected, reading would suffer as the further intellectual growth and voice would falter.
While schools of poetry write whole essays on the importance of one over the other, my academic and postmodern training agrees that both cannot happen without the other. I would agree with Eliot as to the importance of history and tradition because what is "new" must be held accountable to what is old.