Most people associate poetry with rhyme and romance, with emotion and personal involvement. But poetry can be something completely different. Poetry can be a special, critical form of speaking. It can be a genre that critically reflects on the society in which it operates and on the accepted use of language within that society. A genre that doesn’t remove itself from reality but positions itself explicitly within reality. In that sense poetry can be an outspoken political genre. This is what poetry is in the hands of the young Flemish poet Jeroen Theunissen (1977).