To many people poetry is a turn-off. The reason for this is that poems are boring. They are boring because very few move people to identify with them.
Poetry is no longer about reader identification but about author communication.
The poet is not necessarily concerned with whether the reader is moved or not by the poem, so long as he or she understands clearly the message the poet is trying to convey. The popular song, however, does more than this. This is most readily evidenced in the songs of Bob Dylan. Even the most perfunctory of his songs is able to do this to a greater extent than so called 'serious poetry'. And it is this poetic ethos which is drummed into students in schools and poetry workshops throughout the world.