Charl JF Cilliers Comments

REVIEWS: These poems convince as imaginative truths because of their hard core of compressed fact and feeling. Frequently they are based on precise observation of phenomena. But, though often metaphysical, they are not narrowly inward-looking. Everywhere evident is the writer’s sense of responsibility to words and to men. Obscurity is not courted, though some of the poems are not easy. Nothing is ‘easy’ in the pejorative sense of the word, and, in attempting to give a just account of them, one must try not to falsify the complexity of apparently simple utterances. Prof R Harnett on West-Falling Light En hoe verrassend is dié versameling “vergete verse” nie. ‘n Wye verskeidenheid van emosionele ervarings en versvorme met ‘n deurdagte taal- en prosodiese beheer sal die leser van dié ruim versameling deurgaans opval... daar is geen digterskap aan hierdie leser bekend wat so deurlopend en met soveel variasie met die spanning tussen lig en donker gemoeid bly nie. Dr Lucas Malan on Collected Poems 1960-2008 Die besonderse hantering van die prosodie, verrassende slotte en helder beelde imponeer keer op keer. Kyk hoe knap word rympatrone hanteer…Dis ‘n bundel waarin ‘n mens bewus word van die digter se komplekse verhouding met die digkuns… Prof Joan Hambidge on Collected Poems 1960-2008 It is Mr Cilliers’ second collection and his first for seven years. It brings together more than 50 poems published at different times in local literary journals, all noted for their high standards. And in this volume at least he never betrays those standards. He writes for the most part with a facile, fluid line that reads simply and easily. But do not be lulled by this surface fluency: Whatever depths of thought or flights of fancy inspired his lines, whatever ironies or mysteries are intended by them, these are exposed only when the poems are properly savoured. John Tucker on Has Winter No Wisdom Cilliers’ verse is frequently given to the contemplation of the forces – dynamic and destructive – at work in man and nature. Prof Ridley Beeton in the SABC programme New Voices