Doreen,
I thought the last time we had an aesthetic discussion was on punctuation at PIP. I thought you won that won. Albeit, that must have been pretty close to ten years ago.
I don't have any problem with your description as a genre of music. I find it a little baffling when people think it's the same thing as music whether it be Paul Simon or Mozart. It bothers me because the expectations, when you go to either kind of performance, should be different in order to gain any satisfaction from it.
Pinsky is not Pink.
In pop music, in hip/hop, even in folk music, the meaning is secondary to the rhythm/melody. In poetry, meaning becomes much, much more important.
How many times have I heard over the years, "Yeah, but what does it mean?" Now, it makes sense to ask that with some of my stuff because I'm big on negative space, I use allusions, and personal anecdotes, and they don't always connect as clearly as some would like (and sometimes I just screw up); but the point is that the sound, for many people, is secondary to the content in poetry.
Of course, it's also true that people can't understand something unless they already understand it (racism is bad, fighting the good fight is good, fathers and mothers love their children etc.).
When was the last time you heard anybody (except perhaps critics) argue that about a successful pop song?
Now, if you argue that the sense is often in the sound and can't always be easily paraphrased -- hell -- I agree with that, but many people aren't really comfortable with that state of limbo.
And such a view creates its own problems as well.
It's just easier to say that music and poetry are different genres in art and the expectations for each will therefore be different.
Music and poetry and dance for that matter are all temporal arts.
Painting, photography, sculpture are spatial.
And that's usually where I draw the line.
(Wait! I can almost hear it: visual arts are both spatial and temporal. Sure, but then we're talking about movies, animation, etc.)
But I'll wait, I'll wait.