Poetry vs Music & Prose

All too often, when I tell people I'm a poet, the response usually is "theres no money in that," or sometimes just a simple, "why would you want to do that?" Some say poetry is extinct- dissapeared like the dinosaurs. Others may suggest, like others suggest with dinosaurs, that poetry has just evolved. The rhythm of words was not enough, and poetry needed to adapt taking to music as dinosaurs took to feather and flight. So then if people want poetry, modern music should suffice, and if anyone should want writing, nothing is more necessary than prose. So of course, poetry is useless, and dinosaurs like me only find audiences in museums, right? Afterall, what can poetry possibly do that music can't do in expressing emotion, and what prose can't do in conveying a message, information, or a story?
Since the most pressing argument for music and prose being more useful than poetry is made by sales instead of people, it only makes sense to address the cold hard facts first. Music sells, and everyone loves it. It moves us, gets us through hard times, allows us to celibrate the good times, and excites the senses through pulsing rhythms, and melodic sounds. Yes, you can tell from my diction I do love music. As for prose, it gets right to the point. It's simple, clear, easy to understand, and accessable to everyone. Thus, music and prose sell very well, and poetry... poetry takes a special convergence of marketable aspects and talent to even push moderate numbers. If poetry is as important and influential as I intend to prove, "why then, doesn't it sell," would be a logical question.
The truth is, poetry has changed. It has split to appeal to two different audiences. First, after becoming something studied mostly by high level scholars, and well learned intellectuals, one variety of poetry has become a labarynth of literary, historical, and biblical allusions, references to known and unknown contemporaries and predecessors, and dizzying variations on form, rhyme, diction and syntax. This variety of poetry is undeniably thought provoking, and masterfull writing, but is highly inaccessable to the average reader. Though poems of this sort do attempt to convey feeling and emotion as well, these sensations can be lost in the segways to footnotes, or hurried searches for second meanings.
The other main division of poetry is the highly emotional, dramatic, and rhytmic slam poetry. Slam poetry is meant to be preformed, not necessairily read, so aside from those who are in the audience, or seeing a video of the performance, the effect of the poem can't be mass distributed. Furthermore, this kind of poetry becomes more and more theatrical, and not as refined. It is an amazing way to convey emotion, feeling, and thought, but it does not translate well to print, and doesn't always warrant credibility to the scholarly crowd who, for the most part, is responsible for publication. The other difficulty slam poetry faces, is that it is highly similar to hip-hop and rap, only without a beat, and if people want a good rhyme, why not get it with a catchy tune as well?
The great poets of the past, and some of the ones still writing today, however, are able to combine the strengths of the mind igniting scholarly school, and the emotional volitility of slam poetry. These poems are accessable marketable, but still don't sell very well, simply because of the stigma of being poetry. The poems written by a true master have something that music and prose can never offer. The music of a poem is stronger than anything that can be created with an instrument, and the meaning is far deeper than anything plainly stated. A good poem is active. It strums the strings of the soul instead of requiring ears to hear the struming of a guitar. Its meaning is not concrete like prose, but is alive, and is whatever the reader wants it to be.
Since poetry doesn't sell well, being a poet doesn't really mean money falling from trees, and as a poet, that means... I don't really have all that much money. So I have a few other jobs to pay the bills, one of which I need to be at in an hour. I plan to continue this topic afterward, but for now, I've got to bolt. Not to be cliche' but...

To be continued...