get what you pay for

Most poetry events are free, so organizers can’t give a money-back guaranty.

not a transcendent act

I was going to suggest that 'This poem needs to molt its form.' Then I realized that act is not a metamorphosis.

incarcerated

A poem locked in the prison of the canon.

quid pro quo

If you pay for a book of poems you’re more likely to read it over one that has been given to you.

find it free

Free for the taking, the delight in reading a good poem that one knows only a handful of other people know exists in print.

free associative reading

If literary magazines didn’t make payment with copies, who'd ever read them?