Feebleness of verse amid superior work, rhymes initially out of place (7)
I believe the answer is:
poverty
'feebleness of verse' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both states of affairs as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'amid superior work rhymes initially out of place' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'superior' could be 'over' (I've seen this in other clues) and 'over' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'pty' is a valid word 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 poverty that I've seen before include "Lack of money etc" , "Poor state" , "Indigence" , "Need" , "Penury" .)