Nonsensical poet sent north to island republic (6)
I believe the answer is:
israel
'republic' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'nonsensical poet sent north to island' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'island' could be 'is' and 'is' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for israel that I've seen before include "Serial about middle east country" , "Sire, Al is in the Middle East" , "Strange serial country" , "Zion" , "Serial about middle-east state" .)