The roots of the words *poem* and Poetry lie in the ancient Greek verb *poiein*, meaning "to make" or "to create." From this verb came *poiēma*, literally "a thing made." In Greek usage this could refer to any crafted object, but over time it came to be associated with works of language. A poem was therefore first and foremost something made — a crafted creation.
> **Note:** It is this sense of "making" that I argue for in Document as Poetry, where we can see how art, and deliberative practice can be married with law and code to quite literally make or shape the world through a process we think of as participatory design, and others call democracy.
Through Latin *poema* and *poesis*, the idea passed into Old French as *poeme* and *poesie*, before entering English in the Middle Ages. The English word *poem* came to describe an individual composition in verse, while *poetry* named both the art and the body of such works.
The English Renaissance critic Sir Philip Sidney reminded readers of this lineage in his *Defence of Poesie* (1595), where he insisted that poets were true "makers," fashioning worlds out of words. This idea has been central to the self-understanding of poets across traditions.
In Scotland, the Greek inheritance took a distinctive turn. There the word *makar* became the common term for a poet. It was used in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to describe figures such as William Dunbar, Robert Henryson, and Gavin Douglas, who were celebrated as "makars" of the Scottish literary golden age. The makar was understood as a craftsman in language, much as a mason shaped stone or a goldsmith shaped metal.
The term never disappeared entirely and was revived in the modern era. Since 2004, the official National Poet of Scotland has been styled the Scots Makar, a title first given to Edwin Morgan and later held by Liz Lochhead, Jackie Kay, and Kathleen Jamie. The continuity of the word links contemporary poets with the older tradition, and beyond that with the original Greek conception of poetry as an act of making.
# See
- Poem on etymonline.com 
- Poetry - plato.stanford.edu
- scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk
- Makar on en.wikipedia
- Sir Philip Sidney, *Defence of Poesie* (1595)