A level of achievement by the Maori poet (5)
I believe the answer is:
dante
'poet' is the definition.
(13th- and 14th-century Italian poet)
'a level of achievement by the maori' is the wordplay.
'a level of achievement' becomes 'dan' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'the maori' becomes 'te' (I've seen this in other clues).
'dan'+'te'='DANTE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for dante that I've seen before include "Poet inspired by Beatrice" , "Thirteenth-fourteenth century Italian poet" , "Net Da a poet" , "22 [FT SETTER]" , "Inferno poet" .)