Hi, I'm just here to say that I have dealt with the very same thing, only I didn't buy the book. You ever heard of "Famouspoets.com"? You'll find it's advertisement in the back of Seventeen Magazines, I decided to submit one once and when they liked it I was rather excited, but I soon realized the hoax when I saw that I would just be a tiny name in a book, that was last summer.
March rolled around, and it was then that I recieved a hoaxy letter. I laughed at it when I opened it up and saw this certificate that was to be torn off a 'heart felt' and almost personalized letter from the 'poetry editor' (it even came with a picture of her and her familily in the corner.).
It was a "Certificate of Achievement" for me, it even had my name on it! Whoo. Plus, it had signatures on it too! In two different colors of ink! But upon closer investigation, I discovered the obvious, they weren't made from a pen, they were printed on.
It makes me sad to know that they fool so many hopefull people out there.
Well, thanks for writing, and I hope that you don't let your bad experiances hold you down!
-Anonni

They're companies. They require money to publish books and pay their staff. And since no one buys teen poetry anthologies besides the people who are actually published in them, they have to do something do offset their losses.
If you really want prestige and honor at being published without being ripped off, submit stuff to a non profit organization like Scholastics or something that doesn't feed off of desperate parents wanting to own a piece of their daughter's "great poetry". They send free copies of their anthology at anyone who gets published, plus you could even win money.

Your not alone. I've been through the same thing with Poetry.com/it's all just a scam to have you buy the book. I've 'won' three times and I've never, EVER paid for the book - because my friend did it and hers wasn't even in there! They sent her the wrong book yet refused to give her the one that her poem was in.
Your essay is correct - poetry nowadays is for the money, not art.
Alyssa Jo