"Before Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl,' the state of poetry in America was a little bit the way it is today - poetry about poetry, language about language."

This!!!! In general I dislike self-referential art--novels about novelists, songs about life in the band, movies about show business. But poetry strikes me as by far the worst for this trait. (Any poem that contains the phrase "these lines" is an immediate fail for me.)

(The interview the quote comes from is about Allen Ginsberg, not self-referentiality in poetry and art.)

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I believe part of the problem, in literature at least, is part of a "write what you know" syndrome. For many budding contemporary writers, what they know is Iowa Writer's workshop, MFA programs, and the daunting wall of frustrations, of sources internal and external, that beset a would-be writer.

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Possible unrelated observation: most potential readers enjoy ryhming language from time-to-time. Example: Hamilton lyrics.