They also are able to reach larger audiences upon their publication or release. These are the issues at hand. The answer is not simple. Pop-cultural references make your work immediately relevant. Current events have a strong immediate link within cultures and communities.
Immediate relevance is a powerful tool.
Oftentimes, the use of everyday things can greatly increase your communication with your audience. They tend to go over beautifully and reach untraditional poetry audiences. If the piece is written for publication in a magazine or journal, feel free to use references that the journal's audience will understand. But if you would like for your words to be universal, if you would like to publish your work, and you want generations of people all over the world to understand your words and dig your style and feel your thoughts, you should limit your pop-cultural references as much as possible. Because even a good glossary will not recover the precious universality you were aiming for, rather it will bog down your audience and appear more as an academic endeavor.