Old poet's taken round important north-eastern town (6,6)
I believe the answer is:
milton keynes
'old' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'poet's taken round important north-eastern town' is the wordplay.
'poet's' becomes 'miltons' (John Milton).
'taken round' is an insertion indicator.
'important' becomes 'key' (similar in meaning).
'north eastern town' becomes 'ne' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'key'+'ne'='keyne'
'miltons' placed around 'keyne' is 'MILTON KEYNES'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for milton keynes that I've seen before include "Open University HQ city" , "town in 21 [BUCKS] - with 16a" , "Monkeys let in (anag) - English town" , "New city now with Dons" , "Buckinghamshire new town, designated 1967" .)