Back to that Meghan O'Rourke article on Ashbery. It does exactly what a critical article for the general public needs to do: give specific orientation to the reader, but without condescension. The suggestions are concrete and followable, removing some barriers to comprehension (Ashbery's pronoun shifts, for example.) Compare this Joan Houlihan's response to the Hejinian bap, a response which does not fulfill any useful critical function.

The analogy I like to use is classical music. People sometimes assume that it offers some kind of "immediate" gratification, that you don't have to be trained to listen to it. Yet almost everyone who does in fact listen to it with real enjoyment grew up around it in some fashion. Even someone with as little musical talent as I possess. I have studied a few instruments, played in bands, sung in at least three choirs, been to classical concerts, heard my mother and sister play the classical repertory on the piano all through my childhood. I have enough of a background to know what it's all about, without being anything close to an expert on any aspect of it. Much less than a real musician, but in comparison with someone who hasn't had exposure at all, a great deal. I know enough to say that James Merrill is not Mozartian in any way!

Poetry is the same way. People without any background in it need exposure and possibly a bit of guidance. And many people's exposure to it is exceedingly minimal, even more minimal than the average person's exposure to classical music. That's why I love "instruction manuals" if they are done in the right way.