This question is being explored in an event taking place on Wednesday, April 29 at 7 p.m. at the Brooks Memorial Library as a part of the Compassionate Brattleboro discussion series.
If we look closely at the words we are bringing together within the title of this discussion, compassion has its Latin roots com- together with + pati to suffer which means suffering together. A poet, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a poet is: “writer of verse distinguished by particular insight, inspiration, or sensibility, or by remarkable powers of imagination, creativity, or expression…” There are many key words, one of them being sensibility from sensibili or the French etymology, both linking to the senses and feeling.