In the editorial of the latest issue of Acumen Magazine, Editor Patricia 
Oxley expresses her
disappointment about receiving many submissions – she only accepts postal 
submissions – but
hardly any subscriptions. While spending a few days in London, she had 
received fifty submissions,
among them only three from writers on her subscription list, and just one 
new subscription. This makes one wonder which, if any, little magazines 
these poets read. “If poets want to be published and read by other poets”, 
Oxley assumes, “surely it is a courteous, reciprocal gesture to read other 
poetry than their own”. She believes there is no better place “to find a 
wide variety than in the independent magazines”.

I totally agree with Acumen’s editor about the majority of poets only 
wanting to see their work in print but not being interested in supporting a 
magazine or reading work by their fellow poets. Oxley does not accept email 
submissions; we do; which makes the problem even more complicated. When I 
receive email submissions, I send the poets a personal letter acknowledging 
receipt of their submission and asking them to take out a subscription. More 
than 90% do not reply. If only one third of these hopefuls replied and sent 
in a subscription, our finances would be in better shape. We could even turn 
Poetry Salzburg Review into a triquarterly magazine or, if deserted by our 
better judgement, start making token payments. During the time when Fred 
Beake, James Hogg and I edited The Poet’s Voice (between 1993 and 2000), 
most poets submitting work seemed to know the magazine. In the late 1970s 
Donald Davie, at the time co-editor of PN Review, confirmed “in despair that 
no one reads us except those who either write for us or plan to”. In the age 
of the Internet, though, more and more poets do not seem to bother about 
knowing the magazine they are submitting work to or, to make a related 
point, about the ethics of simultaneous submissions. On the other hand, one 
perhaps ought not despair too absolutely. It was only a few weeks ago that I 
received a letter from a poet finishing his PhD in Renaissance Intellectual 
History at the Warburg Institute, London. He told me that he had found a 
copy of Poetry Salzburg Review in the
Institute’s Common Room. As he thought it looked like a magazine worth 
supporting, he sent me a letter, a submission of four poems, and a cheque 
covering one year’s subscription plus a donation. I disagree with Pierre 
Bourdieu when he holds that the little magazine scene is “the most perfectly 
autonomous sector of the field of cultural production […] where the only 
audience aimed at is other producers”. Still, it would help if more 
contributors saw it that way and were not only happy to receive their 
complimentary copy but took out a subscription as well. The penny-pinching 
European zeitgeist with its passion for cutting down on costs seems to be 
firmly lodged in the minds of many (would-be) contributors. We often receive 
letters with bizarre excuses as to why their writers cannot afford one 
year’s subscription at ₤10.00 for 400 pages of poetry and critical 
writing. This is an email I received from a British poet, whose Selected 
Poems were published by the University of Salzburg Press: “I received your 
recent reminder about sub renewal to PSR. However, support and appreciation 
within the literary arena, financial and otherwise, is mutual surely? I 
don’t imply or endorse back-scratching but the magazine never did review 
either my prose or poetry. (Despite your having earlier featured brief 
extracts from them, which I duly acknowledged in both these works.) Since I 
have three new books to be published later in 2006, there seems little point 
either in sending you review copies or a further sub.” No comment necessary! 
Editors can only publish their magazines if they are also supported by a 
regular and committed readership willing to pay the subscription fee, to 
publicise the activities of these magazines among their friends and fellow 
poets and to pass on fliers to their local librarians. Don’t get me wrong: 
Poetry Salzburg Review is not a magazine only publishing subscribers. In our 
Spring 2006 issue, we published work from 58 poets/critics, 15 of whom are 
subscribers, and 6 of whom might be described as lapsed subscribers happy in 
the certainty that they would receive a complimentary copy. In the current 
issue the proportion is similar. We will continue publishing and reviewing 
work by poets who we believe deserve our support. And, we hope, poetry 
lovers and poets alike will thereby be persuaded that we also deserve their 
support.  Wolfgang Görtschacher