Embarrrassed about poetry — or vice versa (8)
I believe the answer is:
reversed
'vice versa' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'embarrrassed about poetry' is the wordplay.
'embarrrassed' becomes 'red' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'about' indicates putting letters inside.
'poetry' becomes 'verse' (lines written in verse).
'red' placed around 'verse' is 'REVERSED'.
'or' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for reversed that I've seen before include "withdrawn" , "Put back to front" , "Put backwards" , "what the answer to the final clue [Send up and down (5)] might be" , "Drove car backwards" .)