Arts and Humanities Commons^™

The Empath’S Travel Log, Pamela J. Thompson

Student Publications

Cynthia Marie Hoffman Studner said of the poem, "This is an ambitious poem that delivers on empathy, just as promised. The poem establishes a metaphor of a “taught thread” that pulls together the traveler and an “orange-coated mutt” spotted in Italy, and this thread weaves throughout the poem as one of continual and deep connection with others. One wonders of the empath’s fate, especially when the poem begins with the story of wives cremated beside their dead husbands. What are the implications of this empathy in terms of its being something the speaker must bear? At times, it is guilt, …