 Some people say he is a travelling bard with a guitar, comparable to Bob Dylan and the South African troubadour Koos du Plessis.He himself says he admires Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen (‘Tom Waits, he messes about, just like me’).In his début collection, Vlok Nel paints a personal portrait of his childhood in Beaufort West, a rural part of South Africa with a predominantly poor-white population.