Poet barely cuts out a line (5)
I believe the answer is:
hardy
'poet' is the definition.
(I know that Hardy has the occupation poet)
'barely cuts out a line' is the wordplay.
'barely' becomes 'hardly' (synonyms).
'cuts out' is a deletion indicator.
'a line' becomes 'l' (used when specifying particular lines from a poem).
'hardly' with 'l' taken out is 'HARDY'.
(Other definitions for hardy that I've seen before include "Stalwart" , "Robust - English novelist" , "with a strong constitution" , "Jude, Tess author" , "Strong and resilient" .)