““The poet doesn’t know what the poem, finally, will be “about” when he uses the word’s etymology as a starting point before he knows the twists and turns of its history. For example, when I decided to write about vanilla as part of a series of poems about food, I researched its etymology, discovering that it comes from the Spanish vainilla, diminutive of the Latin vagina (“sheath”). Thus, the pod-shaped bean was named after the vagina, which itself was named for the function it provides for the penis.””
![“The word ‘sin’ is derived from the Indo-European root ‘es-,’ meaning ‘to be.’ When I discovered this etymology, I intuitively understood that for a [person] trapped in patriarchy, which is the religion of the entire planet, ‘to be’ in the fullest sense is ‘to sin'.” quote by Mary Daly](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/465/mary-daly-12589_etymology_the-word-sin-is-derived-from-the-indo-eu_889160.jpg)
