I suppose students should have a look at "Howl" and "Kaddish" just to see what the Beat Generation poets look like.
Great poetry? No.
I have met Hilton Kramer and Roger Kimball a few times, and admire them both.
The only point I disagree with them on is that Kramer glorifies High Modernism and pans everything that followed it. I think high modernism was also vastly overrated in its time. I don't think Jackson Pollock or the Abstract Expressionists are worth much more than the pop artists who followed them. Both movements are essentially decadent, IMHO. Perhaps Pollock aimed higher than Andy Warhol, but I don't think in the end that either is worth a place in the museums.
I'm more paleo-conservative than him on art. If it's past Representative-Expressionism, I don't buy it.
Cicero --
I share your doubts about High Modernism and never cared much for the Abstract Expressionists. Still, about 15 years ago my father -- a retired steelworker with a high school education -- visited NYC and I took him to MOMA. All art was new to him. He wasn't impressed with the water lillies. But LOVED the Pollacks. He saw the one that used to hang in the hallway near the escalator and exclaimed, "Now, there's a painting." It made me think that there might be something to Pollack after all.
I don't know why but I think Warhol's Mao in Chicago is pretty cool. And I like Pollack too.