I should warn that I'm actually not really qualified to answer this question since I neither know too much about a poetry nor am I even a native English speaker. However I'm answering anyway because I've made an observation which might adequately explain why the first version sounds fine and the second doesn't.

Looking at your first version,

In poetry, it's true, it can be changed,

I notice there to be a second rhythm on top of the "stressed-unstressed" pattern: The stressed syllables alternate between "strongly stressed" and "lightly stressed". Let me make it explicit by making the strongly stressed syllables bold and the slightly stressed ones italics:

"In po-e-try it's true, it can be changed"

As you see, "secondary stressed" syllable of "poetry" ends up in a lightly stressed slot.

Now for your second version:

It's true, in poetry, it can be changed,

Adding the very same pattern here results in

"It's true, in po-e-try, it can be changed"

As you see, now the "secondary stressed" syllable goes into a strongly stressed slot. And I think that is what makes it sound wrong.

Addition:

Looking at the Shakespeare lines quoted by Standback, they also seem to follow an alternating pattern of strongly/lightly stressed syllables, except they start with the lightly stressed one:

Shall I com-pare thee to a sum-mer's day?
Thou art more love-ly and more tem-per-ate

Note how, again, the "secondary stressed" syllable of "temperate" goes to a lightly stressed one.

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