For Johannesburg poet MrTK, poetry isn’t an escape from reality—it’s a way of confronting the truths people often struggle to say out loud.
His upcoming collection, Apologies Are for Losers, dives into themes of envy, identity, ambition, and self-acceptance, challenging readers to rethink emotions that are often hidden behind pride or silence. At the heart of the collection is Suburbs & Scoreboards, a poem inspired by the experience of growing up between two very different worlds.
Raised in the suburbs while spending much of his childhood with family in Mamelodi, MrTK found himself constantly navigating two versions of home. That duality shaped not only his perspective but also the questions that continue to influence his writing.
“Poetry became the one place both versions of me could sit in the same room and stop performing”
Rather than presenting privilege as something fixed, Suburbs & Scoreboards explores how our understanding of success, belonging, and identity changes depending on where we stand. The poem reflects on the quiet comparisons many people carry, the feeling of not having enough in one environment while being seen as fortunate in another.
For MrTK, those contradictions became impossible to ignore. “I wanted to write against the idea that privilege is a fixed address,” he explains. “The truth is much messier. You can be behind and ahead in the same body, depending only on who’s watching.”
Through his work, he hopes to start more honest conversations about envy, gratitude, and the pressure to measure ourselves against others. Instead of treating envy as something shameful, he explores how it can become a starting point for growth when acknowledged rather than hidden.
That emotional honesty continues throughout Apologies Are for Losers, a collection divided into four chapters, Envy, Arrogance, Effort, and Self-Acceptance. Together, they trace a deeply personal journey while speaking to experiences that feel familiar to many young South Africans searching for their place in the world.
Although rooted in his own story, MrTK’s poetry reaches beyond autobiography. It asks readers to examine the stories they tell themselves about success, class, and identity, while recognising that perspective is often shaped by where we happen to stand.
As he continues building his voice as a poet, one thing remains clear: MrTK isn’t interested in writing words that simply sound beautiful. He’s interested in writing the truths that linger long after the final line.