An Italian poet is rather slow (7)
I believe the answer is:
andante
'rather slow' is the definition.
(musical direction)
'an italian poet' is the wordplay.
'italian poet' becomes 'dante' (Dante Alighieri).
'an'+'dante'='ANDANTE'
'is' is the link.
(Other definitions for andante that I've seen before include "not quickly" , "tad slow for 9 [FLAUTIST] ?" , "Moderately slow musical passage" , "Moving fairly slowly" , "(Of tempo) moderately slow" .)