I find the last line, where he talks about “novice readers”, to be offensive and patronising. It reminds me of the way colonialist academics in my country would talk about the art and culture of "primitive" tribes. As for the phrase “genuine challenges of poetry”. Please!
I read the whole article, and there were some interesting parts; however, the last paragraph, the one that was quoted above, mainly, doesn't make sense. It's just a long stream of overwrought obfuscated gibberish.
Bukowski, truly, more than most, didn't fit into the world, and because, ultimately, no one, really, fits into this world, including the middle classes, he has something to say to everyone, even, it would seem, Mr Kirsch.
Bukowski’s fans realize that “some people,” like E. E. Cummings’s “mostpeople,” or J. D. Salinger’s hated “phonies,” are never us, always them—those not perceptive enough to understand our merit, or our favorite author’s. This is a typically adolescent emotion, and it is no coincidence that all three of these writers exert a special power over teen-agers.
I always thought that the young had more moral integrity than the adults, so maybe it's the adults who need to grow up.
That guy may well have just said that anyone who reads Bukowski is an idiot, because they’ve not read enough Ezra Pound.