Potry/Bibliotherapy conferecne and Rumi’s Guest House
https://somayehmckian.com/1st-european-biblio-poetry-therapy-conference-2024-2/
On the 4th and 5th of October 2024, I was at the first European conference of poetry/bibliotherapy in Budapest, I had a presentation and I enjoyed the whole conference, with beautiful ideas and creative people. I presented autoethnography and creative writing parts from my thesis, and also narrative inquiry as one part of the methodology. I finished my lecture with a poem by Mahmoud Drawish, the Palestinian poet. I appreciate Dr Judit Béres for the invitation, it was such a pleasure. The next conference will be in Finland. Some presentations specifically focused on Persian poets, Dr. Victoria Field, gave a keynote speech about “The Guest House” by Rumi, which is a perennial favorite poem for use in biblio-poetry therapy, and one other lecturer also focused on Hafiz another Persian classic poet.
As a Persian participating in the first European conference, I felt sad and happy at the same time, happy because of the opportunity to listen to other people and their ideas around poetry and literature, and its therapeutic implications, sad because in Iran we never work on these fields specifically and officially, we don’t have institutions such a poetry/bibliotherapy to create contents or collaborate with the rest of the world, even the collaboration between psychotherapists and Persian literature specialist is not clear or strong in Iran. I was thinking it would be great that at least one Iranian expert in poetry or Persian literature be a noted speaker in such conferences to make a proper collaboration and introduce the rest of the poets and their potential for self-reflection, and how poems can make people aware of their own existence and encourage them to clarify their relationship to fundamental questions and values leading to a personal change and a more authentic life.
Aftre the conference, the profound “Guest House” poem by Molana (Rumi), was repeating in my mind, I pondered ways to deepen this experience for non Persian speakers. To achieve a more comprehensive understanding, I reached out to my esteemed professor in Iran, Dr. Hadi Azimi I explained the situation to him and asked him to translate the whole poem. He has translated the entire poem for the first time from Persian to English. While most references are limited to the opening lines translated by Coleman Barks, John Moyne, A.J. Arberry, and Reynold Nicholson, this complete version offers fresh insights into the poem’s depth.
In an effort to further explore its psychological dimensions, I have decided to give a lecture in Prague titled “The Metaphor of the Guest House: Molana’s Hospitality Toward Emotions.” This talk will delve into the psychological metaphors embedded in the poem, examining how the human body can be considered as a guest house.
I will share more details about the experience. Meanwhile, I invite you to explore the attached complete poem in its original Persian and the English translation, presented in the form of couplets from the “Maṭnawīye Ma’nawī” (Spiritual Couplets; مثنوی معنوی).
Stay tuned for more updates, and I look forward to engaging with you on this fascinating topic.
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Hadi Azimi
Department of English Language and Literature
Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences
Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
Email: ha_azimi@sbu.ac.ir
