30/04/2013
Starting out as an investigative journalist, I had this goal in mind: to analyze the world, and also to fight injustice, by telling the stories of others – using my pen as a revolutionary weapon. Then, a few years ago, I fell ill, inexplicably. I eventually turned out to have contracted Lyme's disease, perhaps the world's least-known global epidemic. When that verdict was pronounced, I took a radical decision: I went and examined my poems with the sober, detached eye of an editor in chief. For twenty years, I had written poems – emotive, stream-of-consciousness poetry – but had not found an outlet for them. I found the texts in a folder on my computer. Some were so old that I couldn't even remember writing them anymore. But my editor approved, and I decided to publish.
From my sickbed - Lyme is in fact a biological-neurological disorder and not a psychosomatic affliction - I founded my own publishing house, on the advice of other, well-known writers. I figured I had gained enough experience producing books and promoting other writers; and entrepreneurship is something that runs in the family. Finally, the time was right to write about what was deep inside of me. OERDRANG ('Primal Urge') immediately became one of the best-selling books of poetry in Belgium, and I was very pleased to be nominated for my verbal art by the Marnixring Limburg for Dutch Culture and Language. My works were included as Flemish Cultural Heritage in the Heritage Library Hendrik Conscience – a writer whom I am literally, if distantly related to. But the main thing was: I was slowly back on the path to wellness.
At last, I was doing what I had always wanted: to write, with my own authentic self as a source. These days, I frequently write about subjects like love, travel, silence, reading, philosophy, music, gastronomy, wine... and of course Lyme, that multi-systemic disease – and its remedies. I write against the hypocrisy that dominates society, and for the underdog.
Meanwhile, as the Poet Laureate of the fruit-growing region of Haspengouw (2016-'17), I was invited to recite a unique poem for Belgium's king, Philip I. My poetry has been translated into English, French, Latin, Russian, Turkish, Arabic, and even into the Maaslandic dialect of my home region. In short, after a very long odyssey, it was my disease that led me to my purpose in life, benefited the growth of my soul and most of all – led me to back to health.
