I suppose the fear of some journals is that they'll wind up publishing something that has been published elsewhere...and that the holder of the original publication rights will take legal action. I'm guessing that concern is at the very core of it. Either that, or they take the need to be the "first" to have published a particular poem very seriously.
I don't submit much these days, but I can guarantee that it wouldn't deter me from sending something workshopped on Eratosphere to a publication with statements similar to Poetry's above. And the idea of one po-mag taking legal action against another po-mag over publication of one of my poems makes me want to bust out laughing. It's just not a big enough industry to be worth such a hassle.
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