Poet's work straddled metre and timing (5)
I believe the answer is:
tempo
'timing' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'poet's work straddled metre' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'metre' could be 'm' (synonyms) and 'm' is found in the answer.
an anagram of 'poet' is 'tepo' which is present in the left over letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'and' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tempo that I've seen before include "Rhythm or speed as in music" , "Cadence" , "Musical time" , "Pace - pacing" , "Speed at which piece of music is played" .)