In their seminal work "Poetic Inquiry: Vibrant Voices in the Social Sciences," Prendergast et al. (2009). point out that: "[t]he need for a plurality of methods that can be applied to individual research projects on the human condition has never had a stronger calling than it does now ... [p]oetic methods are qualitative and call for self-conscious participation ... with life as lived, up close and personal ..." (xi). As a language artist-scholar and imagination-intellect theorist working in interpretive methods around issues of race, class, and gender and how they affect the social foundations of American society, here I use poetic inquiry to explore the importance of empathy in imagination-intellectual development. "Sadie Stories draws upon informal conversations with an African-American mother and young African-American homeless women, to empathize with homelessness from a daughter's perspective. This work is written as if Sadie has stopped on the street to speak to an audience.