Hi all
Another McAllister’s Mates (late again!) where I tell you about some of the many great writers on Substack that I have stumbled upon and become enthralled by. This week I have the pleasure to introduce an immensely talented poet JLG Noga.
JLG Noga
Poetry for me has always been about the language behind the language. The art being at its most powerful when it explores, truly challenges or even redefines the nature of the spoken or written word. A vision lost I fear to the mainstream publishing world but thriving, blazing within the Substack community.
One such writer is NGL Noga. These poems are not only rich in striking imagery and emotional resonance, they are also fascinatingly presented. The layouts, formatting, punctuation and of course word choices combine to form an orchestra. A linguistic world that we can observe as a whole or delve into each fascinating piece.
It’s an approach similar in many ways to the ancient Egyptian reverence for the written word. Here each letter becomes a visual cypher, each syllable becomes a breath or musical note. This is the true art of poetry, of which rhyming schemes, meter, and alliteration are but tools and devices. These techniques are not conventional laws to be strictly adhered to nor quaint antiquities to be cast aside. Here is a writer who I propose shares my beliefs on this matter and executes them with breathtaking talent.
I’m your Baroness tainted on your wall,
Seeming as if she were alive. I fall
Far from frame and down to darklight, which bears
No colour, naught gore nor glare, but the fares
Of my fairness, my depths and my passions
My spots of joy, ‘till I am naught but rations
Most obvious is the smooth, buttery AA rhyming scheme and the keenly balanced hard and soft syllables on each line. This is an embodiment of the ethereal grace that runs through the lyrics.
Notice however, the deliberately obstructing commas breaking into the harmony of the lines. This is the doubt and fear creeping in. Deliberate cracks in the graceful rhythm accentuate her doubt and hammer home that chilling line “‘till I am naught but rations”.
While I can feel the hands of the ancient Hermetic scribes in the approach and underlying philosophy, there is a defiant punk rock attitude in the execution!
“ＳｔａaaaaaaaaaaaａＡＡＡＡＡＡＡＹＹＹＹＹＹＹＹＹＹＹＹ———”
“ girdingme makinggoldoutofme makingme see me as I sleep.”
Those careful rhythms lose their form and discipline as desperation and passion overtake the piece. Grammatical laws are defied and wilfully bent in ways that would scandalise the founders of the romantic poetry era. The effect drags us into the heart of emotions that stir, maybe even terrify our own hearts.
Respect and rejection of form combine again in another series of poems on faith and spirituality. Once again heavenly poetic imagery and raw, passionate entreaties entwine in a rope reaching from heaven to earthly, maybe even grimy places.
“Mahjong! Four fain faces in a dai pai dong,
Scorned by four score and eight secrets, sans probe.
Thirteen tiles thine, befriended tetraphobe,
‘Me and my wife prevail,’ saith one man’s singsong,
To spite his scored whore and her shredded sarong.
He asks fair lady of her seventh son’s lobe
And fair lady plays fair, boiled dog’s smile—Niobe.
Then baak baan for the tablehead, night lurches long.”
This passage from the poem MOMUS explores the game of Mahjong as a metaphor, maybe even a model of the divine. However, this is not just an ode to sacred geometry or a hymn to the forces of cosmic chance. This game of Mahjong takes place in a very real, very bawdy and raucous party or bar. Earthly pleasures opening as many altered states and doors of perception as the monk meditating on the mountain. Perhaps the true bards are given insights to an inside joke shared between the angels and the stars. Maybe such creatures have a sense of humour as deep and as wicked as the beatific calm we project upon them.
Another from the same article - again the attention to detail comes in the gorgeousness of the rhythms and the tight line lengths. While seemingly more reverent and restrained than Momus - the inclusion of the Barbie doll is a wicked ingeniously placed piece of Kitsch. Maybe it casts a few giggles across the self-serious worshippers and those more serious readers?
“ARDHANARISHVARA
They’re a Barbie doll gone voodoo
With mambo’s mind and houngan’s heat
With magic like bone-hewed hoodoo
Crossed and dressed along this beat
A master who maketh mistress
And Myra who becks and bridges
Inside our land of Woolfs and virgins
Where selves strain akin to surgeons
To slice away the lifelong penance
We’ll walk in beauty like the night
And deaden names to end our plight
To redress our dharmic sentence
We’ll tell our names the livelong June
And read ‘Liang Zhu’ beneath the moon”
The final piece in this trilogy is TABERNACLE. A dual format poem that opens with a captivating haiku alluding to a personal spiritual breakthrough with some intriguing numerological references.The elegance and spiritual calm gives way to a torrential stream of consciousness. It could be read as the “perfect zen” state collapsing… Or (my preferred reading) the realisation of the zen calm being merely the first step and a tool to face the whirlwind of the self and the world, not escape from it.
JLG Noga work is a fascinating blending of opposite forces into a layered whole, the sharp edges and the smooth creams never merge into one bland whole - they find a way to co-exist. Perhaps the true alchemist doesn’t transmute lead into gold.. They build sculptures from diamonds and dirt.
I hope you enjoy these beautiful works as much as I enjoyed reading and writing about it.
You can meet some of my other friends in the previous instalments: 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Substack has proven to be a treasure trove and I already have a few more gifted writers lined up for my next review newsletter.
P.S Subscribe for your chance to get your work reviewed here!
You can also claim your FREE book of Poetry and art Hypnos Hermes - an epic poem presented as a medieval manuscript. A fantastical story written in verse enriched by many colourful and vibrant artworks.
If you want to keep me in caffeine (and keep the ghostly voices whispering for the poetry side of things) - consider clicking below. For any who do so, you have my deepest gratitude.
So so kind and a pleasure to read ur take on my work. Much love Graeme
can attest that he’s a brilliant writer