The poet appears to lie badly (5)
I believe the answer is:
eliot
'the poet' is the definition.
(TS Eliot)
'to lie badly' is the wordplay.
'badly' indicates anagramming the letters.
'to'+'lie'='tolie'
'tolie' is an anagram of 'ELIOT'.
'appears' is the link.
(Other definitions for eliot that I've seen before include "T.S. --, poet" , "T S . . . . . wrote ''The Waste Land''" , "Pseudonymous writer" , "Murder in the Cathedral author" , "Four Quartets poet" .)