Sir, - In following the continuing controversy over the shameful act of the Oxford University Press in abandoning its poetry list (Letters, most recently, January 8), it occurs to me that its Delegates did not consider the adverse effect on potential charitable donors to the University. Recent conversation with some fellow old members of the University revealed that there is a distinct disinclination to give charitably to an institution which regards the publication of contemporary poets as an act of charity it can ill afford.
Surely the Delegates are big and brave enough to reverse their Finance Committee's decision which, in any case, they need not have endorsed, and start a list again? Otherwise, presumably now that the Press operates strictly on commercial lines and has axed the poetry list, the Charity Commission will axe OUP.
BRIAN MARTIN 4 Chalfont Road, Oxford