Andy T is a poet, philosopher, podcaster, prick, politician, and part-time pastor. His work has appeared in the Times, the New Yorker, in conversation with Piers Morgan, and Ploughshares. When he’s not writing, Andy T likes selling underage girls over the internet and boxing YouTubers.
Every era of history is defined by its great art. The Lost Generation of the 1920s novelists, the Dutch Golden Age of 17th century painters, the Technicolour spectacles of ‘30s cinema. History is recorded not as a string of monarchs but as a succession of creatives rites, passed off to one another, each improving on the last.
It stands to reason, then, that the art of our own present day must be the best that has ever been. Though many contest this fact, I present to you now evidence in the concrete of this truth.
As Wittgenstein did to philosophy, so too does Andy T, having solved it in concept, walk away from poetics.
Bow to a hunted king.
Like all great art, the medium is, in part, the message. The phenomena of ‘Life on Expert Mode’ (hereafter LOEM) begins before the first word, as one casts one’s eyes over the cover image. On it, we see an impossibly muscular Andy, with three laser-sights trained on his glistening pecs (hidden, but certainly glistening, beneath his tailored suit). Despite the evident danger, Andy looks unperturbed, stolid. A reassuring presence among discord and chaos. The cover artwork, which is an unedited smartphone photograph, immediately speaks to the stoic, self-assured tones of the poem.
As far as opening lines go, LOEM must be counted alongside 1984 (It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.) and The Stranger (Mama died today. Or yesterday, maybe.) as brilliancies. ‘Maximum possible score at the maximum possible difficulty.’ What is the reader supposed to do with that?
What Andy intuitive understands about poetry is that it is a suggestive medium; the didactic points are in the blank space between the lines, in the images and significations conjured up not in the words of the piece but in the mind of the reader. As such, what the ‘maximum possible score’ which must be achieved in spite of the ‘maximum possible difficulty’ is varies by person. Ingeniously, then, in eight words Andy casts an entire audience into self-inquiry, and reels them back in community enjoined.
To dissect every line of this poem in such detail would be unfair - like Don McLean’s famous record, it resists interpretation. However, I wanted to call attention to a few standout moments in LOEM, with the hope that just one of the impressionable students reading this work might become a lifelong fan of words for it. Onwards, then;
The all-capitalised interjection, ‘NO MISTAKES’ catches the reader off guard, punishing them for their catatonic state of entrancement. This is Andy’s core ethos; always be on guard, always be ready, never have headphones in in public. It’s a fundamental life lesson that’s served him well, and one which he poeticises gracefully without sacrifice style and flourish.
The elegantly simple ‘Poison is tasteless / are you sure your food is alright?’. Wow. Many will read this as a declaration of slipping culinary sanitary standards, and nothing more, but few will grasp the underlying, profoundly human, resonance. You think you’re all alone in the world, and that no one could possibly understand your emotional turbulence, just to read Andy and discover that, years ago, men felt the same way, and they wrote it down.
Finally, the holy tricolon; ‘Strength, Discipline, Honour’. Life lessons in rosy packaging, hard truths painted over with aesthetic glimmer. What more needs to be said?
And so Andy set his pen down, never again to be uncapped. And I tell you now that this poem, this extraordinary work, will outlast him and you and me, but will show future generations who we were; how we lived, how we felt, what we gave to each other and why.
Beautiful. Actually beautiful. I just put down my crystal glass of Johnnie Walker - on the rocks - to admire this. Also, I’ll admit I’m crying right now. Masculine tears; salty, sweaty, metal-hard. I hadn’t seen this poem before. If I would add anything I’d probably just add an Andy T quote which I think is probably the only way you could begin to understand his genius here: “My unmatched perspicacity coupled with sheer indefatigability makes me a feared opponent in any realm of human endeavour.”