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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 15, No. 12. July 3, 1952

Great Audiences

Great Audiences.

[There is more good verse being written in America, to-day than la New Zealand, said Johnson]. It is the one country where many little periodicals flourish, and the audience is great. War assisted literary progress, for the writers and artists sought refuge in neutrality. While Europe was numbed with war, the American poet could still expostulate and be angry. The motto of Poetry Chicago is this: To have great poets there must be great audiences too." These, quantitively, America has. Carl Shapiro, editor, has 5000 poems a month submitted to him. . .

Are they all poets? Obviously not One may argue that only the best may appear in print, therefore the standard must be high. But with such a, huge amount written one feels that that which is eye-taking gets printed. We may miss the solid virtues of American poetry.