@article{Fishburn, author = {Fishburn, Katherine}, title = {To have or to be: A Poet's Journey to the Question of Environmental Ethics and Justice}, series = {The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences: Annual Review, Vol.2, No. 3 (2007), pp. 237-248. [Online ISSN 2474-2260] [doi.org/10.18848/1833-1882/CGP/v02i03/52303]}, journal = {The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences: Annual Review, Vol.2, No. 3 (2007), pp. 237-248. [Online ISSN 2474-2260] [doi.org/10.18848/1833-1882/CGP/v02i03/52303]}, abstract = {ln this paper I discuss the various paths I have taken to become a poet who gives voice to some of the key environmental issues of our time. As I map out this journey I discuss a selection of my own poetry that focuses on the topic of environmental ethics and justice. The main influences on my poetry come from:ยท my own childhood experiences with nature, academic research I have done on pain and my personal experience of pain (inspired by Arthur Frank's book >The Wounded Storyteller< and Maurice Merleau-Ponty's late essay >The Intertwining<), the question concerning technology (inspired by Heidegger's essay of this name), philosophical hermeneutics (from Gadamer's work. especially >Truth and Method<), and the ethical obligation to bear witness to suffering. My goal as an essayist and a poet is to move toward the consilience described by E. O. Wilson's book of that name and to further me project of Erich Fromm as laid out in his book >To Have Or To Be<. Just as poetry by its nature cannot offer programs for social change, poets cannot exhort readers to take action; instead, we must inspire them to change by touching the very fiber of their being-in-the-world.}, language = {en} }