South African poet Vincent Oliphant is born

Vincent Oliphant, acclaimed South African poet, mathematician and educationist was born in 1954 in Alicedale, a small town near Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. His first book of poems, Bloed vloei in stilte (Blood flows in silence), was published in 1981, and comprised personal poems. In 1995 he received the second prize in a poetry competition held by Concept, a Belgian cultural organisation and the following year was invited to take part in the annual Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam. His second book of poetry, Die sagte vlees (The soft flesh), was published in 1998. The poems in this book were more varied than those in his first work and included socio-political as well as personal (specifically love) poems.