Q. As a publisher, I have been fortunate to discover an unpublished writer who is the author of some truly remarkable poetry. I have made my selection and want to go ahead with his first collection, but my stumbling block is that he is adamant that, along with the remarkable verses, I must include other work which is certainly not of the same quality. To include what is frankly doggerel would compromise the rest of the work. He is beginning to be querulous about this and says he now doubts my judgment. Mary, how can I persuade him that I know best?
– Name and address withheld
A. Tell him that you have been thinking about the disputed poems and have suddenly been able to clarify the reason for your instinctive rejection. The quality is not in question, it is that they have quite a different feel to them from the other work.
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