Empathy Engines and the Imagination. Part Two. Anya Achtenberg

A generative writing exploration to deepen characterization across the genres, taken from—

© 2021 Anya Achtenberg, from Creative Writing for Social Change: Re-Dream a Just World Workshops, which I’ve been creating and teaching since (at least) 1998.

First, the promised poem

The poem I promised to you in the previous post on empathy engines/empathy machines and the imagination holds an expansive yet humble approach to help you begin to cross a border in your writing—with reverence and humility—as an entry into empathy, into compassion; into knowledge of and connection with others. It reminds us of how much we want to know what others experience; how much we desire to get closer to knowing them, even if, at some level, we might fail. But to activate the empathy engines within us can only make us better writers. Better humans.

The power of compassion/empathy in writing is also basic to good craft.

Finding a way within that ocean of language to connect to the power of compassion/empathy in writing is also basic to good craft. It is fundamental to writing characters—whether real or imagined; people you know; people you don’t. It is of fundamental use for your writing in entering the natural world; or entering an imaginary world you create; a world in the past, or one in the future. Fundamental as well, to be able to enter the worlds within you. The many states of mind, within. The places of memory, within.

The poem holds a brilliant concept that can fuel our empathy engines, and open the way, with reverence, into beings that exist outside of us no matter how closely we want to hold them within.

The promised poem

First, take a look at the promised poem, “Pit Pony”, by William Greenway, below. [Ponies, horses and mules (mules more so in the US) were commonly used underground in coal mines to pull the loads, from mid-18th until mid-20th century. In 1913 there were 70,000 pit ponies at work in Britain.]

Pit Pony

by William Greenway

There are only a few left, he says,
kept by old Welsh miners, souvenirs,
like gallstones or gold teeth, torn
from this “pit,” so cold and wet
my breath comes out a soul up
into my helmet’s lantern beam,
anthracite walls running, gleaming,
and the floors iron-rutted with tram tracks,
the almost pure rust that grows and waves
like orange moss in the gutters of water
that used to rise and drown.
He makes us turn all lights off, almost
a mile down. While children scream,
I try to see anything, my hand touching
my nose, my wife beside me—darkness
palpable, like a velvet sack over our heads,
even the glow of watches left behind.
This is where they were born, into
this nothing, felt first with their cold noses
for the shaggy side and warm bag of black milk,
pulled their trams for twenty years
through pitch, past birds that didn’t sing,
through doors opened by five-year-olds
who sat in the cheap, complete blackness
listening for steps, a knock.
And they died down here, generation
after generation.
The last one, when it dies in the hills,
not quite blind, the mines closed forever,
will it die strangely? Will it wonder
dimly why it was exiled from the rest
of its race, from the dark flanks of the soft
mother, what these timbers are that hold up
nothing but blue? If this is the beginning
of death, this wind, these stars?

The poem begins with the specifics of a concrete place, time, history, a tour of a defunct coal mine (may they all…). It begins by the speaker going into and experiencing a bit of that loaded darkness the miners and their helpers knew so well.

It bursts into a kind of aching need to understand this experience.

It births questions.

(It’s always useful to connect to what births questions in your writing!)

With that birth of questions, can come an aching need to understand this other experience…such need pushes this poet into wondering. Pushes him beyond imagining. Into questioning. Into wandering.

It births associations, fuels and extends our associative reach, calls up our own experiences; calls up what we know of others, of history, of the loneliness of the last of anything, of anyone…

It pushed Greenway into this poem. A deep, questioning, compassionate, aching, poem of beautiful language; with no easy answers or resolutions. No forgiveness for the crime in it. It pushed this poet into a very specific activity—into wondering what someone else is wondering about—an activity that might go on for all of one’s life—

–simply wondering what another being wonders about.

Getting ready to write.

This poem’s approach can inform and fuel your work, and help you in the challenging task of writing about what and who you want to more fully and surprisingly imagine.

Perhaps, asking questions, and wondering what someone else wonders about, is just the ticket into some of the worlds inhabited by others.

Get a clean “page” or document ready, and get comfortable. Read or listen to the rest before you write, because I have some questions first.

First, some questions:

How does one enter another world — whether a fictional world, a created world; a remembered world; or a world yet unknown to us, whether faraway or next door?

How does one enter another’s world — with reverence and respect, with openness to discovering their truths?

How does one enter another world with compassion, even if that world is—the world of the self; or a world within the self?

How does one limit assumptions and preconceived notions?

How does one cross boundaries with reverence and respect?

Big questions, no guaranteed answers.

Here I offer a simple writing exploration, one step in a complex human process.

Getting to the writing:

First, open that place of compassion, the ability to feel with another. (Remember to include yourself, as we so often exclude ourselves from the compassion we send into the world.)

I think of Hanuman the Monkey God, who is, among other things, a god of compassion in Hinduism. (also, a god of language!) I once saw a drawing of him, in which he is holding his chest open, to reveal within, a kind of mandorla shape, his heart of compassion. Never forgot it. I think of it as flame, as a live ruby…I think of Quan Yin, goddess of compassion.

So, from that place, begin to allow yourself to wonder, with compassion; to enter the world or the place of another, with the knowledge and experience you do have, and with reverence even toward what you fear or disapprove of or feel shamed by, as you move toward the being you seek to learn from.

As you wonder about this other being, this other world, you might, most simply, ask questions.

First, write that list of questions to those beings and places you wonder about.

Second, take your wondering another step further.

Instead of simply wondering what another is like, or what their life is like, let your writing-self wonder what that other being you’d like to write about—might wonder about.

To make a specific entryway into wondering—remember the end of “Pit Pony”—

“Will it (the last pit pony) wonder
dimly why it was exiled from the rest
of its race, from the dark flanks of the soft
mother, what these timbers are that hold up
nothing but blue? If this is the beginning
of death, this wind, these stars?”

The poet wonders, will this last pit pony wonder…why…what…if…

You can let yourself ask, will this person or place or being wonder…why…what…if…how…when…who…how much….

To give yourself an even more specific entry into this wondering about another, you might think of this other being at a specific moment.

I wonder what X was wondering about when they entered this world, or this place…

I wonder what X was wondering about when they were leaving…

I wonder what X was wondering about at the moment of a certain event or action, gift or loss…

All in the spirit of wondering what another wonders about.

Wondering admits not knowing, but also affirms that the one who is wondering about another, is invested in doing so. Is moved to do so.

More than simply curious, the wonderer possesses a need to know more, to discover more about this being.

So, let your writer-self go into wondering…what that person, that being, wonders about—this is part of our job, no? and—

Write.

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Forthcoming Workshops with Anya Achtenberg:

Ø Reaching Story through Simultaneity (a Standalone/Write-Together Workshop in the Say it! Digalo! series). 1/8/26.

Ø Essential Elements of Story in Fiction, Memoir/Creative Nonfiction, and Hybrid Forms. 10 week intensive of written lectures, Zoom workshops, constructive written and oral feedback—to reframe and expand each element of story beyond prefab formulas. Begins 1/14/26.

Ø Anya Achtenberg: Teacher, mentor, manuscript consultant, prizewinning author of fiction, poetry, and a bit of nonfiction. For registration and contact information; other workshops and individual writer’s services; publications; testimonials; and my blog Writing in Upheaval, see links below.

Ø Contact: aachtenberg at gmail… or on Substack at https://anyaachtenberg.substack.com/

Ø See: https://anya-achtenberg.com/workshops/; https://anya-achtenberg.com/published-work/

Writing in Upheaval

I’m Anya Achtenberg, novelist, poet, teacher, and writer’s consultant. This newsletter holds my organic approach to writing craft with the power to counter historical amnesia.

By Anya Achtenberg

More information on workshops coming in the next post. Let’s do some work together.

Anya Achtenberg

November 25, 2025

A generative writing exploration to deepen characterization across the genres