In the loop

I have just heard down that great chain of robbers, the interwebz, that Tasmania's Island magazine have joined its only vaguely more terrestrial and iron-hearted true blue Overland, in only considering submissions from those who subscribe. Go figure in an apparently pluralistic society. The latter mag all for social engineering, the  former for, well, good old liberal whatever, but both with an apparent intolerance for anything resembling an audience beyond the jealous confines of St Kilda or Sandy Bay. 

As a failed publisher many times over (OK, twice), I appreciate there can be certain pressures, but in this case if, as I assume, the plug has been pulled from above, why not let the old dears die and move on?  Ivor Indyk manned up with Heat, but then I have always judged him to be made of sterner stuff than most.

I count myself one of a tiny minority that actually continues to subscribe to literary publications, but that's mainly because I like receiving parcels in the mail. I would never assume that because I am on one list I have earned automatic access to the other, to be both producer and consumer of product, but that appears to be the business model these two literary dinosaurs are going with.

Oh, and contrary to what the editors of such forlorn periodicals like to tell us, poets are not in fact the only audience for poetry, as my broad experience of people outside the fraternity (yes, I know, I mingle!) has taught me. But when you are peddling such a business model I guess it doesn't hurt to maintain the illusion.