Adaptable tail oddly mentioned in poetry (9)
I believe the answer is:
versatile
'adaptable' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'tail oddly mentioned in poetry' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
an anagram of 'tail' is 'atil' which is within the answer.
'poetry' could be 'vers' (I've seen this before) and 'vers' is found in the answer.
A single letter 'e' remains which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for versatile that I've seen before include "willing to fit in?" , "Multi-talented" , "elastic!" , "Adaptable like relatives" , "Adapting easily to different tasks" .)