He has published one collection of poems, Om te lewe is onnatuurlik (To live is unnatural), for which he received the Ingrid Jonker Prize in 1994.
[1] Om te lewe is onnatuurlik was followed by a CD, Beaufort Wes se beautiful woorde, an autobiographical sketch and a full-length show with poems, songs and visual material, which he has performed all over South Africa.
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.
Vlok Nel writes his lyrics in an unusual and innovative Afrikaans, comparable with, if anything, the language experiments of Antjie Krog.
The Dutch poet Gerrit Komrij included eight of Vlok Nel's poems in his anthology of South African poetry in Afrikaans De Afrikaanse poëzie in 1000 en enige gedichten.