Declares a piece of poetry lacks point (5)
I believe the answer is:
avers
'declares' is the definition.
(averring is a kind of declaring)
'a piece of poetry lacks point' is the wordplay.
'piece of poetry lacks' becomes 'ver' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'point' becomes 's' (South).
'a'+'ver'+'s'='AVERS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for avers that I've seen before include "Alleges, asserts" , "States positively" , "Swears" , "States to be true" , "Declares to be true" .)