The different conventions in this poetry world take some getting used to. No-one told me, for example: If you are mainly to date a prose writer and have an agent, you do not request said agent to approach publishers of poetry, as I did because it seemed natural. Apparently, the publishers do not like it, and the poet is expected to do the contacting themselves. Why? It would be useful if some published poets/poetry presses could cast light on this one. One would have thought the slush piles are fifty times higher than prose...
Another convention in the poetry world mirrors one that the prose world adhered to some years ago, ie: a record of online publication does not seem to be seen as much cop. This despite the rigorous editorial skills of someone like Helen Ivory, for example, who edits Ink Sweat and Tears...which makes little sense to me, but there you go. Maybe someone who knows more can explain? To be taken seriously, you need a record of quality publications in ‘proper’ magazines, to make up a strong CV. (There’s that word again - the poetry world still seems to have a strong backbone of properness - convention.) If they are thinking commercially, I'd have thought so long as you have a following, does it matter where you are read? A poem probably gets far more readings online than it does in a paper publication... no? If they are thinking purely professionally, why does another editor's previous decision to publish you strengthen their own?
I guess the answer to that is, either you play the game by the rules, or you don’t. And there are conventions, so if you want to get anywhere, follow them. And I don’t think it is coincidence that attending some workshops with Pascale Petit and learning, learning about editing in particular, runs alongside doing a bit better, do you?