You could write a poem telling how to eat spaghetti, how to ask for a date, how to sharpen a knife, how to let go of grief, or even how to write a poem. Or you could take it to extremes: how to prevent global warming, how to kiss a snake, how to become dust.

Figurative language works by implication and often by indirection, which may account, in part, for the impression that poetry is hard to understand and needs to be interpreted, unlike a news article, where the language is literal and straightforward, the meaning self-evident.

The word "poet" derives from ancient Greek, where it meant "to make." Before people wrote, they made poems. And still today, people who don't write, make poetry. Even more fundamentally than a writer, then, a poet is a maker, an inventor — in language.