“Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations — many rare combinations.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.”

— Walt Whitman

Complete Prose Works (1892), III. Notes Left Over 3. Ventures, on an Old Theme, p.324 http://books.google.com/books?id=UJA1AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA324
Context: If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than any equal number of people elsewhere — probably more than the rest of the world combined.
Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations — many rare combinations.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.

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Walt Whitman 181

American poet, essayist and journalist 1819–1892

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