How To Become a Published Poet???

I have always wanted to do the published poet thing. Where I have a hard back or paper back book. I wanted a majorly published book able to find my cool looking publishing in large bookstores like Amazon.com or within Borders Books and Music. Every where I have searched for information has turned up like a dry well. They usually point to individual publishing such as dorrence or xlibris. Now my impression of dorrence and xlibris is that you can do your own basic book or publication to your liking but it doesn't seem like its of the highest quality.I had the opportunity of signing up with xlibris just to check out how their system operates and found it to be extremely annoying. Once they had my name on their list they sent me literature that filled my trash can quick. They, also, constantly called with some starving sales associate on the other end that wanted me to just shovel out $1200 to $3000, or more, for a publication. Its funny you can't help but laugh because they prompt you to the option like you are buying a candy bar at a gas station. Books have to be well thought out to have it be received by the correct target audience. You want your book very well organized so that it reads well and has some compelling pulls on emotions and suspense. You can't just rush into it after being pressured over the phone or by reading some brochure. Now, I know that there are publishers out there but every time I tried to get information on their contacts and process I was told that I would have to have a production geared for high impact and a large return on royalties. That's literally impossible for a person that goes to a coffee shop every now and again and posts his poetry on the ever saturated internet blogs such as Xanga.com. Essentially, a major book turns out to be a play on confidence for your particular idea, your face, and your name in my understanding and opinion. The aftermath of all of the confusion, and the depression from getting noes on my poetry style opted me to give up in failure. I deleted my blog on Xanga.com, said I wasn't going to write again as well, and afterwards I received a pretty cool email from a company called Author House. This company seems promising. At first I ignored it because I was getting constant emails. But what caught my attention was the title saying "YOU CAN GET YOUR BOOK PUBLISHED FOR FREE!". Now I have already, just recently, set up my account and have began to take a little time to set up my manuscript to get it started. The cool thing about AuthorHouse is that they set it up, publish, and print it for free. There is a bookstore that you buy the books from and you gain a commission off of the high quality finished piece. If you are an artist, or a poet, or a photographer like myself and you want to get published, you don't want to be haggled into the process, and you know you don't have the money or the notoriety for a major publishing program, then go the Author House way. But like Lavar Burton used to say. "You Don't Have to Take My Word For It."