Meet Andy Lewis

Andy Lewis paints fleeting moments of intimacy with a sense of finality. Delicately capturing the interplay of light and shadow, with a textural depth of emotion embedded in each line and flickers of colorful imagery, his poetry is kinetic, eternalizing epiphanies and crystallizing moments of realization, forgiveness, release, and connection in suspended motion.

Follow the links below to read Andy’s poetry!

Memories are so often like this
Now
That’s the thing about
i woke up from a fever nap, looked at your painting on my wall, and forgave you
Friday evenings

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Nagmeh was kind enough to answer a few questions for us. Please enjoy.

What is a writer to you?

To me, a writer is anyone who puts pen to paper (or fingers to a keyboard). There is, by all means, a craft to it that can be studied and honed to make you a quality writer, but equally I’ve found shopping lists on the ground in parking lots that I would consider poetry. Perhaps that’s the experimental streak in me talking.

When did you realize you were a writer?

I remember leaving the first lesson of a short course in Creative Writing with Literary Kitchen back in London, UK and having this lightbulb moment and knowing it was the thing I wanted to do. I knew I liked writing before that, but I didn’t really believe I could pursue it as a career or know how to learn the craft until then. After that moment, it just seemed inevitable that I had to try.

What are your (big or small) goals as a writer?

My current big goal as a writer is to write and direct my next feature screenplay that’s in the works. I’ve co-written features before, and I’ve directed TV and shorts before, but never solo wrote and directed a feature film. Trusting the process and treating the screenplay as one long poem has been the trick so far.

A smaller goal of mine that I’m currently exploring is creating a larger poetry collection and using ancient texts in my writing process. My current collection RED TAPES feels punky and angsty in ways, which I love, but the one I’m writing now is pulling something more spiritual and contemplative out of me, and is digging even deeper while still experimenting recklessly with form.

Describe your writing routine or lack thereof. (E.g., early morning, late night, sporadic, feast or famine, number of words daily, etc.)

I don’t have a ‘writing routine’ per say, but more a toolkit that I use to write whenever I can or whenever the moment strikes. I use freewriting a lot to kickstart the creative ‘flow’. I make sure to always stay curious about what topics, artists, and things are inspiring me at any given time. I tend to approach poetry (and now even screenplays) with a ‘puzzle piece’ approach. Write down what comes to you and when you think you’re done, step back and rearrange everything, then go back in with a new sense of the bigger picture, and rinse and repeat until everything feels clicked into place. My approach is built around the idea of ‘playing’ – cutting pages up and rearranging them, making up little rules for writing the next draft, playing make-believe in my head, and never losing that curiosity or restricting myself with expectations of the process. And if I’m writing, I always have multiple notebooks and sheets surrounding me that I scribble and scrawl on incoherently along the way.

Inspiration strikes whenever it wants, wherever you are. Can you list some of the places you were at when you either conceived of these poems or actually wrote them?

‘Friday evenings’ was inspired by finding an object in a park, and then discussing it on a different walk with someone, and the place I wrote most of it was at my desk, where I could see one of those parks from my window.

With ‘I woke up from a fever dream nap, looked at your painting on my wall, and forgave you.’, the long winded title speaks to the moment the poem came to me, while the poem itself speaks to the liminal space of still being between sleep and awake, contrasting with this clear and certain emotion that overwhelmed me. So a lot of that was scribbled down when I woke up and grabbed the notepad on my nightstand. I’ve found that dreams can be a really powerful tool for inspiration and am constantly exploring that more.

What is your relationship to writing like? Do you love it? Hate it? Do you think your art comes from within you or do you believe in muses, or a divine spirit that uses you as an antenna? Further, do you write quickly and wash your hands when finished or do you labor day after day over one poem, scrutinizing every word choice?

I love writing, and if I’m ever not loving it, I take a pause and ask myself why. I did that about a year ago and put aside a screenplay and started from scratch with a new idea, and immediately things I didn’t know were in me came spilling out.

Although I believe you can make inspiration happen at any point, I think there’s also something to be said for something greater at work: whether you call it a divine spirit, God’s plan, or just a state of flow, or anything else. I’m not claiming to understand it fully, but it’s there!

I work with my poems in waves and ripples – my poems will cycle through several drafts in one long writing session, and then I’ll leave them for a bit, come back and redraft it a little often with feedback from a friend. Then I’ll leave it for longer, come back and tweak it. That will keep happening until everything feels settled. By the end, I like to feel a sense of certainty about every word that makes them feel locked in or untouchable.

What is the most detrimental to your writing progress? (E.g., Is it distractions? Plotting? Revisions? The blank page? The finishing? The size of your audience?)

Daydreaming and procrastination is definitely a barrier I deal with as a writer. Again, finding those little tricks like freewriting to just break you into that flow and channel your thoughts into writing is the key for me. Equally, sometimes daydreams and procrastination can be very purposeful. Sometimes your subconscious isn’t quite ready and knows there is another piece that needs to fall into place first. I’ve experienced that many times, but when you face procrastination or distractions, you can’t just assume it’s going to organically lead to an epiphany. So again, it’s always about going back to that tool belt of writing tricks and exercises to fix whatever obstacle is there.

If you could cure yourself from the writer’s bug, would you take the cure? What do you think you’d do instead of being tormented all day long by the existential anxiety of creation?

The idea of curing the writing bug seems appealing at moments, but equally, it would be like tearing out my skeleton to fix a bone ache. It’s just too ingrained and central to my identity for me to live without it. I’m sure I would revert to another creative output – I love sewing, I used to draw and paint a lot, so I’d fall straight into another vice for sure.

If you could provide an accompanying soundtrack to your work, what songs would you include on it?

I often make playlists for projects as I’m writing them, and they’ll often evolve along with the project. With RED TAPES, it’s also structured with an A Side and B Side like a cassette tape or vinyl record. One poem that BarBar has published, Memories are so often like this, actually mentions someone ‘humming that fucking song that I was so torn up by’. I went back and forth on if I should name the specific song in the poem or not. The song was ‘As It Was’ by Harry Styles, which I think does capture a certain liminal feel shared by the poem, but it also felt like a weird song to cry to.

If your collection manifested into human form, what would your first date be like?

If RED TAPES manifested into human form, it would be a fun but reckless first date. We’d both end up drinking too much, hooking up, throwing up in the taxi home the next day, and losing each other’s numbers and crying about it. I would definitely recommend reading my collection over dating it.

If your collection does manifest into human form, give us a day in their life, some backstory for them, and what’s in store for them.

If RED TAPES was a living person, I guess it depends on where in the collection you meet them – the collection has an overriding arc to it. So to personify that, if you met Side A, their day would involve waking up late and rushing to work. I think they’d work at a weird adult film VHS store on the brink of closure. After work, they’d smoke a joint and watch a Tarantino film and pass out. If you met Side B, it’s maybe someone who got to yoga class five minutes late, then works a shift at a cute bakery. They go to art galleries and collect postcards and drink tequila cocktails.

If your collection was a constellation, what would this new sign be? Can you give us a brief horoscope reading for someone born under that sign?

The RED TAPES constellation would look like a VHS tape – a lazy figure 8 boxed in by other stars. The reading I’d give for it as a zodiac sign is: this is someone who is feisty but vulnerable, and they need to be aware of the boxes that they are put in and the shame that it brings – breaking out is the key to them finding their true voice.

We all have strengths and weaknesses in our writing, what are yours?

One of my strengths is my experimental approach, which I think translates into the irreverent tone of my work. One of my weaknesses is coming up with titles. A trick I’ve used in the past is to cut the final line of a poem and use it as the title instead. I think I learnt that from Tim Atkins or Jeff Hilson.

What deal would you make with the devil? (Does not have pertain to writing.)

Maybe I’d try and talk him into going to therapy. It seems like someone ought to.

What is one thing you would change about the literary community/industry?

Even within the literary community and industry, public libraries are massively undervalued. I would love to see that change. I say this as someone who has a stack of overdue library books and is due a visit myself.

Tell us about the inspiration behind your work on BarBar.

The whole RED TAPES collection came from a difficult time in my personal life, which involved leaving a difficult and consuming relationship and ultimately, reclaiming my own voice and values.

Tell us about the process of creating, finishing, and submitting the work published on BarBar.

The creation involved lots of inspiration exercises. Things like creating collage poems from existing poems and then rewriting them, or going for walks and following the colour red and making notes, which was an idea I borrowed from CA Conrad’s semantic rituals.

Finishing it was more of a slow and painful process. Cutting the umbilical cord and putting it into the world felt more daunting than usual, and I felt I needed some distance from the subject matter first. But putting them out into the world has all been rewarding and encouraging so far!

Tell us about the projects you are working on now and what’s next.

Now, I’m working on a longer poetry collection that is more spiritual, reflective, and approaches some more existential and philosophical themes. It’s also closely connected to a specific colour, or at least it is so far. I’m also working on my next feature screenplay, which is more dark and surreal than any of my previous film work. You can stay up to date on both my film and poetry projects at redtapes.ca!

What written work by another author lives rent-free in your head?

I read a piece of flash fiction called ‘More’ by Youssef Helmi almost a decade ago, and find myself revisiting it often. There’s something both simple and surreal about it. I’ve read some great poetry by him too.

What are your three desert island books?

One that’s easy is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath – I don’t often re-read novels, but that’s one I love to go back to. The Book of Frank by CA Conrad would be another great one. And the Bible. I’m going to need a miracle to survive!

What if we said you could take those three, but also one guilty pleasure. What would you take? Ignore the logistics. It can be a book, album, or movie.

That’s tough. Maybe a cheesy slasher movie or Mean Girls. I’d probably not have the balls to watch a horror movie alone on a deserted island though, so I’ll take Mean Girls. Or The Muppets Christmas Carol. It depends on the season, I guess!