This article summarises a keynote talk given at the 1st European Biblio/Poetry Therapy Conference, held at MagNet Közösségi Ház in Budapest on Saturday 5th October 2024. As this was a talk, the article is written in a conversational rather than academic style. The Introduction outlines the process of devising the talk. The account of the talk itself includes the writing prompts given on the day, and the Conclusion puts the talk into a wider context. The talk used “The Guest House” by Rumi, in a translation by Coleman Barks based on a version by John Moyne (Barks, 1996, 109) as a frame for discussing what it means ‘to be human’. Three themes were explored: how biblio/poetry therapy is an example of hospitality, especially in the way the arts offer meaning in a troubled world; questions relating to translation; and the importance of connection. The talk included references to models of biblio/poetry therapy suggested by Mazza (2017) and Alfrey et al. (2022). The Conclusion extends the idea of the ‘symbolic’ in biblio/poetry therapy.
