I was listening to the line-break radio program with Ron Silliman (interviewed by Bernstein). At one point Ron constrasts his audience with that of Allen Ginsberg. He says that when he gives a reading, he will know at least 50% of the audience, and that the audience will know his work as well. When Allen Ginsberg gives a poetry reading, he knows almost noone in the audience, and the audience only knows, at most, a few anthology pieces by Ginsberg. (This was when Ginsberg was still alive.) I guess that's the upside of being a coterie poet as opposed to what Ginsberg had become - a sort of pop-culture symbol.