I don't believe in elitism. I don't think the audience is this dumb person lower than me. I am the audience.
Being slim is the new elitism. Thinness today says that you are richer, smarter and more successful than the overweight masses.
Of course, there's a certain type of person who feels that anything which becomes mainstream has to be rejected immediately. And that's part of the indie-alternative snobbery and hierarchy and elitism.
Free verse seemed democratic because it offered freedom of access to writers. And those who disdained free verse would always be open to accusations of elitism, mandarinism. Open form was like common ground on which all might graze their cattle - it was not to be closed in by usurping landlords.
When I was growing up, there was a feeling in one's living room as much as in one's local gallery that a little elitism was good for the soul.