I have included work from my teenage years to the present day and notes taken from my journal so that this is not a selection nor simply a collection of poems but also a story about their and my development over 50 or more years.

I am grateful and indebted to Professor Laidlaw for her correspondence in response to my poetry over the years. The culmination perhaps of her interest and appreciation is expressed in the fascinating examination of the work in her essay given here.

---

The poetry of Phil Coates

A Timeless Journey:

Gladring (Phil Coates)

Gladring was a knight of whom it’s told
that man and maids found fairest to behold
And though a holy code forbade them such
Many longed his weathered skin to touch
with their pale fingertips
And trembled at the promise of his lips
But though such noble beauty can make heads swell
Gladring was modest, kind to man and beasts as well
And walked not strutting nose in air
But almost girl-like he was shy and fair
Yet in his grace there was a strength controlled
His shield and sword were hard and cold
And if some news of evil came
Men shuddered at his eyes aflame…

The Seafarer (Anon.)

…His heart is not in harping nor in the having of rings
Has no delight in women nor the world’s gladnesses
Nor can think of any thing outside the thrash of waves
Sea-struck, is distracted, stillness lost.

The Wanderer (Anon.)

…Throughout this middle earth
walls stand beaten by the wind
covered with rime, snow-covered the dwellings.
The wine-halls go to ruin, the lie
deprived of joy, the host has all perished…

Moor (Coates)

…Beyond the swell and hollow
Cold clean water
Voiced hidden ways
Sword grass warned
Clay clutched hungry
Beyond a sea of silence…

Forgotten stone sentries
Post irons empty
The rubble road of an ancient wake
Still walking silent 
End unknowable

Foreword

A comparison of Coates’ poetry and the poetry of Anglo-Saxon times can illuminate the qualities and value of both. They each create a significant relationship between the poets and their readers (or listeners) that influences how the texts can be understood.

Rosenblatt (1982) states:

Reading is a transaction, a two-way process, involving a reader and a text at a particular time under particular circumstances… The words in their particular pattern stir up elements of memory, activate areas of consciousness. The reader… sets up tentative notions of a subject, of some framework into which to fit the ideas as the words unfurl. If the subsequent words do not fit into the framework, it may have to be revised, thus opening up new and further possibilities for the text that follows.

Transaction, although a sound insight, is too narrow a perspective on which to judge the quality of a poem sufficiently for the purposes of this essay. If poetry were only transactional, that would mean if a reader liked a poem, it must be a ‘good’ poem.

The case will be made that while the relationship between poet and reader is vitally important, its transactional nature cannot fully account for the poets’ own intimate relationship with language. Such reasoning diminishes the reality that language itself is alive and has qualities that ultimately evade classification.

The nature of truth plays a large part in this evaluation and is grounded in the idea that the aspects of a poem must mirror all other aspects. In literary criticism this is called a theory of coherence. Repp (2017) writes:

Coherence can add literary value to a work at least in part because it can add epistemic value by enhancing the warrant of a work’s themes or the trustworthiness of its author (p. 70).

In 2018, Coates exhibited several linked, painted canvases for his M.A. in Fine Arts, called, “An impossible object” His friend said (2019):

This encapsulates a great deal of what is being argued in this essay about Coates’ poetry. In his most successful poems, all aspects mirror the truth in their own ways, such that the readers can reach deeper levels of insight and relate it to their own experience.

In current times, most often studied are the constituent parts of writing, rather than approach it holistically. Great poetry must be more than the sum of its parts (Simicek and Ellis, 2017). It is a central tenet of this writing, that poetry of significance can nurture the human spirit.

The themes being discussed in this essay cannot constitute an exhaustive study of either sets of poetry but shape a journey, far enough to give the reader a sense of their style, themes and purposes and the timeless value they share.

Introduction:

During the last thirty years, Coates has shared his poetry with the author who now wants to do more than comment on individual poems. The purpose here is to reveal the power and significance of his writing by complementing his ‘Collected Poems’ with insights about Anglo-Saxon poetry (i.e. written between 450 and 1100 AD). This is an idiosyncratic approach, but it is hoped that the connections between them will illuminate both, and in particular show something of the timelessness of Coates’ poems.

There is no suggestion of anything derivative in his poetry or that a comparison – and in some places contrast – is going to consolidate poetic worth. This essay starts from the premise that both sets of poetry are of high literary, cultural, and ontological value. It is further claimed that their art transcends form and content by merging both as a creative and living dialectic (Laidlaw, 2008).

Coates’ poetry spans from the 1960s to the present day. His collection comprises about 150 poems. Most of the Anglo-Saxon poems come from an oral tradition, and only later were they – or versions of them – written down. However, they have left an eloquent legacy. The principal Old English poems focused on are:

• ‘The Wayfarer’ (transl. Siân Echon, 2024)
• ‘The Seafarer’ (transl. Burton Raffel, n.d.)
• ‘Beowulf’ (transl. Seamus Heaney, 2000); ‘Bilingual Beowulf’ (n.d.).
• ‘The Finsburh Fragment’, ‘The Wanderer’, ‘The Runes’, ‘Widsith’ and ‘The Battle of Maldon’ (transl. Ophelia Hostetter, 2024)

It is understood that comparing poetry-in-translation to other poetic works in their original form could be problematic, as a literary reworking is bound to alter the dialectic between language, author and their times. Coates writes about this in one of ‘The Runes’ poems, ‘Raido’ (Journey):

Meanings often change in translation
I was a traveller with an ear for another language.

Interpretations may sometimes distort the dialectic in ways that make it difficult to evaluate. Therefore, this text will only focus on the translations that evoke insight beyond simple logic or narrative and are likely to convince the reader of their poetic integrity. In addition, the translations chosen had to comply with an inner coherence as outlined in the Foreword.

The experience of reading Coates’ and Anglo-Saxon poetry can be likened to coming round a corner and being transfixed by an Aladdin’s Cave in which language and truth are inseparable, and in that discovery to recognise one of humanity’s highest attainments and also, at its best, to share in it. In his poem of March 2023, Coates wrote the lines:

I prefer the truth 
Even as appearance is more powerful
Even as lies make kings
I will step aside. 

The celebration of the poetry under discussion is organised under the following headings: 

• Language
• Metre and Imagery
• Themes
• Archetypes and Individuation
• Language and Values

Language

Anglo-Saxon poetry-in-translation illuminates what it means to be human by creating that close relationship between language and form (Heaney, 2010)

Language brings us together to achieve wonders of cooperation and yet separates us as surely as if everyone had their own shibboleth (Coates, 2022a).

In this section, the dimensions of language are shown initially in the context of their corruption in modern times, and then in more enlightened ways in the poetry of Coates and the Anglo-Saxon authors.

Poetry has been defined as:

A literary work in which the expression of feelings and ideas is given intensity by the use of distinctive style and rhythm; poems collectively or as a genre of literature (OUP, 2016).

As far as it goes, the definition above appears reasonable, but the emphasis should surely be on language rather than form. It describes poetry almost as a system, rather than as a creative process with language which necessitates a fusion with the poet. The premise of this essay is that language is alive, that to an extent it has a life of its own, and that a poet needs to be fused with it in order to create poetry worth the name; in other words, it has to be something that endures beyond mere social and local contexts.

Modern Distortions of Language

Language can be corrupted, and this leads to many kinds of disintegration, as Orwell (1946) explained:

The decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes… But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.

Three years later he wrote the era-defining novel, ‘1984’ (Orwell, 1949), which deals precisely with how language can corrupt not only political systems, but distort ways of thinking, destroy human creativity and innovation. It has the ultimate effect of turning people into automatons of obedience, whom T. S. Eliot (2002) in ‘The Hollow Men’ described as:

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion.

When language is used to disguise and distort meanings, the words themselves become endangered and lose their integrity. An example of this would be a phrase like ‘delivering the curriculum’, becoming popular in Education in the 1980s. A reasonable response would have been: ‘Where do you want it? Round the back?’ 

This careless use of language implies that Education is a mere commodity to be bought, used, and then thrown away, and the danger is that the language repeated over and over again through the decades will make it become true. Such a violation of words enables a false sense of control for the user, a kind of linguistic determinism. This is entirely contrary to any educational system which would surely need to be about facilitating human beings’ growth into their fullest humanity (Delong and Whitehead, 2023). Indeed, it is not simply in that sphere that the danger lies. It is potentially in all human areas, as Orwell warned us.

The German language, which has close connections with the development of our own, has long since combined nouns to generate meanings, the longest of which was written about in a humorous article in ‘The Guardian Newspaper’ by a journalist (Connolly, 2013), who ridiculed the proliferation of such a noun:

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.

It means: the law concerning the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle marking and the labelling of beef.

Even with a history of compound nouns as a normal part of German grammar and expression, this gargoyle construction was seen as gobbledegook, rather than anything approaching clear communication. The article was an appeal for common-sense.

The biggest trouble with the proliferation of compound nouns in modern English is that the writers seem to believe this usage somehow elevates their text to one of authority, or that it has the appearance of a final truth. In the author’s experience as a university professor, the proliferation of compound nouns is growing. Its use is always clumsy and can obscure the meanings and is a robotic use of language through which no genuine insight can remain alive. Recently, the sentence:

We need to drill down to the committee management allocation opportunities…

appeared in an assignment in a module for a Master’s degree. It is pompous, self-aggrandising, and contorted to the point of incomprehensibility.

The Use of Language in Coates’ Poetry

In ’Words’ (2024), the poet writes:

The first ever spoken
Were held in sacred trust.
To share meaning was to share mind,
Those in common our living bind.
Lies broke the link.
Sly, 
..Wormed sense awry
And left mad islands of marooned meanings
..With no value,
Mere tokens 
For a sacred trust now broken.

The notion, to share meaning was to share mind, is lived from his earliest poems, and is where the integrity of his writing rests most securely. And the brilliant line, “And left mad islands of marooned meanings”, denotes precisely the problem mentioned earlier about the misuse of language.

Language and Poet are one in the above extract, and the use of language opens the possibility of sharing meaning with his reader. It is also about being mindful. Throughout Coates’ collected work, this is a leit-motif. The language of his original and valuable poetry doesn’t simply point somewhere, it is the point!

Thus, when words are butchered into fragments, shadows both of spirit and the physical world encroach on hope, integrity, and truth. Coates writes directly about the difficulties of communicating at all in a poem from February 2021:

I wonder whether to speak at all.
 
You want to save the planet
. 
You want to save the people
 
You want to be happy
. 
It is simple.
 
Everything you need to know has been written over and over.
 
Everything you need to do is laid out
. 
Everyone you need to be

. 
Who do you listen to? 

I can tell you. 
I will tell you.
 
There are words in the bible that need rescuing.
 
You won’t believe me.
 
You will say - this has nothing to do with drought and famine
.
 Nothing to do with war and hate
. 
Nothing to do with death and despair


The above suggests a clear link between the dulling of words – and even worse, their  avoidance – when the meanings contain vital truths for our survival. The image of words needing to be rescued makes the point about the living nature of language, and its influence transparent.

In ‘Kanu’, a Runes poem, there is a delightful verse:

A meeting by the bonfire -
Words crackled and spit,
A steady warm glow,
Sparks fly into the darkness.

Words here are vividly alive; they shape the conversation in their own image. This is language as archetype, something that will be discussed later. The verse also reveals a deft use of personification and metaphor. His words take the reader to the place with its sights and sounds and invocations. And the location, though not described, comes alive and can be experienced by the reader.

In ‘Uruz’ (Strength) the life of words is mentioned several times:

You have a gift it seems to see pearls.
When others only see scalloped shells.
I thought I had come to know men’s nature
I must burn my too simple insights on the altar 
Else lose the lustre of my own truth here…

…Put aside your doubt.
At each renewed step the road is longer.
Each road you walk, your truth is stronger.”

In some of his poetry, he is defending words. In the remainder, they are defending him. The plea for language to be taken seriously is a dimension of much of his poetry because the truth is at stake, and never has it been more urgent than in these modern times (Barzali and Chinn, 2020; Hopkin and Rosamund, 2018). 

Another recent and untitled poem shows metaphorically the problems with the imprisonment of that which must remain at least partially free in order to flourish. Coates makes it clear throughout his poetry (‘Heretic’s Prayer’ and ‘Chameleon’ for example) that  neither he nor language like being restricted. He writes:

I have been inclined to keep time, coralled,
To be exercised and put to work, carefully,
Contrary creature
So stubborn-slow in hard times, 
Heedless to gallop on good ground
Fit to be cursed.
But lately, I have left the gate open,
And let it wander a little.

He might have been talking about words here. Coates offers the reader a clean text, because he does not use language to exploit, but to encourage the distillation of the meaning and significance of what he is writing about. His language is about communication and comment. It doesn’t compromise. That doesn’t mean his language is inflexible. Quite the reverse. Without abusing integrity, he nurtures language and makes it his own. As in the poem above, he offers metaphors to evoke many possible realities so that he can engage with the reader truthfully.

Language in Anglo-Saxon Poetry

In ‘The Wanderer’, the poet writes about the effects of being separated from his bearings as a human being (in the guise of a journey aboard ship away from his home-country and community). He expresses the difficulties of letting go and venturing into the unknown, something his audience would easily relate to.

…Separated from homeland
far from my noble kin
Had to bind my thoughts with fetters

Since that long ago the darkness of earth
Covered my gold friend and I, abject
Proceeded thence, winter-sad, over the binding of the waves…

‘Gold friend’ offers the reader insights into a common strategy of Anglo-Saxon poets. Because they did not have the vocabulary of modern English, they had to bring together words that would spark life into their poetry and enable the listeners to gather the meaning from the context. See later under ‘Kennings’.

In ‘The Runes’ another poet offers us a richness of language to evoke contradictions in human lives:

The ox is single-minded and over-horned,
most savage beast, fighting with his horns,
well-known moor-stepper. That is a proud creature.

Thorns are severely sharp. To any thane
seizing it is an evil, measurelessly cruel
to every man who comes to rest upon it.

The mouth is the beginning of all speech,
a support to wisdom and a comfort to the wise,
and a prosperity and trust to every earl.

The above is timeless, wisdom conveyed poetically within a context that can be violent and unpredictable.

The richness of the language used in Anglo-Saxon poetry often emphasises the paradoxes of life, alternating verses with positive and negative aspects of being human, as above. There is also the strong belief that language is engaged in a quest to tell the truth, as in Coates’ work. The metaphor of the horse in his poem quoted earlier is similar in design to the Wanderer’s focus on the sadness of the seascape mirroring his inner feelings, a very early pathetic fallacy:

…and I, abject
Proceeded thence, winter-sad, over the binding of the waves…

The evocation of something beyond language itself is a key feature of both types of poetry.

Metre & Imagery

When I reread Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods’ I understood something about the craft. He is hampered by his need to keep the structure consistent. Some of the lines and words used, end up being less lyrical or cogent than they might be otherwise. I’m more fluid; I use the rhyme and rhythm more locally and change it to suit the moment. It gives me more freedom so more control (Coates, 2023).

There are some fascinating parallels to be drawn between Coates’ and Anglo-Saxon poetry in terms of how both use metre and create imagery. The early texts relied heavily on set metre without rhyme. Coates’ writing is metrically more flexible and uses rhyme when it aids communication. He sometimes relies on regular numbers of syllables in a line, as in ‘Birth Song’, for example:

On a spring night, of a new moon,
Below the chorus of the sea,
Hear the tides call out to thee.
Pools of waiting; “Be soon, be soon”;
Unanswered silence drains into
Still waters, as I wait for you.

It isn’t simply a matter of (mostly) eight syllables in a line or series of lines, it’s a manifestation of the relationship between the author and his work and the inferences to be drawn from that relationship. Here, the rhythms are almost like heartbeats. However, the third line above has only seven syllables, which causes the reader to pause. The metre enacts the moment. It emphasises the numinosity of the moment and the religious allusion to ‘thee’.

Later in the same poem, he writes this:

In the woodland, deeply greening,
Pregnant with an ancient stone,
From lifeless matter fruit is borne.
Earth to earth is all our meaning
Gift to gift, giver to giver,
Still valley and flowing river.

The seven syllables in italics emphasise the unlikely juxtaposition of ‘pregnant’ with ‘stone’, thus associating a runic past with something about the development of life itself. It is a clear illustration of Coates’ flexibility mentioned earlier. In ‘A Walk’, he offers the reader alternative flows of emphases, showing how historical precedent can be harnessed by those whose motives are about power and ego and never about truth. The results are devastating.

And it was ever thus.

He had sons and taught them his litany

If the village was saved it was because of their intervention

If it was doomed it was because the villagers were found wanting


And so was born the first priesthood,

A weak dishonest man

A desperate gullible people

And a fool’s litany.

The last line is adamant, pulling the metre up sharply in order to force the reader to stop with a jot.

Turning to the poetic metre in ‘Beowulf’, even in translation the appearance of an original poem through caesura (a metric pause or break) was standardised, which the lines below demonstrate:

A ring-whorled prow rode in the harbour,

Ice-clad, || outbound, || a craft for a prince.

They stretched their beloved lord in his boat,

Laid out by the mast, || amidships,

The great ring-giver. || Far-fetched treasures

Were piled upon him, || and precious gear.

I never heard before of a ship so well furbished

With battle tackle, || bladed weapons

And coats of mail. || The massed treasure

Was loaded on top of him: || it would travel far

On out into the ocean’s sway.

The divisions mirror meanings, sounds and intent. Most poets use some sort of caesura although rarely to such a stylised degree both visually and aurally. Coates employs differing phrase-lengths as a way of accentuating a point as shown above. It is less stylised than the Anglo-Saxon, but it adds to the purposes and meanings. ‘Conception’, offers the reader a clear example of this melding between structure and significance (and imagery):

And something stopped
Stood still
A single second of eternity

Beyond our understanding
We had held fate in our hands for a moment

The lines’ lengths appear haphazard, but they are not. They emphasise a moment’s interaction with eternity. T. S. Eliot (1941) stated this idea explicitly in ‘The Dry Salvages’:

The point of intersection of the timeless
With time.

…whereas Coates’ evocation holds more consistency with the nature of Time itself. It is expressed without being explicit, lending it heft and greater significance. Eliot’s words communicate the idea. Coates and the ‘Beowulf’ poet offer the meaning and the experience.

Anglo-Saxon poems were read aloud to a largely pre-literate audience with the sounds punctuated with enjambment, which was the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza. This is crucial for the embedding of memory and meaning. The running of one line or more into the next without punctuation is seen throughout the genre and would have lent more emphasis and flow for an audience. In ‘The Wanderer’, the poet offers a combination of enjambment and caesura:

A wise man must be patient,
nor must he ever be too hot tempered, nor too hasty of speech
nor too weak in battles, nor too heedless,
nor too fearful, nor too cheerful, nor too greedy for wealth
nor ever too eager for boasting before he knows for certain.

The protagonist reflects on battles, but not intending indiscriminate brutality. The clever use of metrical devices accentuates the individual’s working through what he needs to take responsibility for. In ‘Dawn’ by Coates, there is this:

In the East
At the worlds end
Players tune the tones and colours of the day,
First notes of a distant harmony.

The first two lines are short, but they open out to suggest the potential beauty of the days to come. The metre points to the – as yet – distant harmony, all of which represent the narrator’s aims. He, like the protagonist in ‘The Wanderer’, is not there: the meeting is yet to come, but he is heading in that direction.

In ‘The Seafarer’ we find this:

This tale is true, and mine. It tells
How the sea took me, swept me back
And forth in sorrow and fear and pain
Showed me suffering in a hundred ships,
In a thousand ports and in me.

Here, the poet shows the rocking of the boat by splitting the first three lines without punctuation at the end, thus building image upon image in smooth succession. The final phrase, ‘and in me’ is, as a result, both desolate and matter-of-fact. He could have placed those last three words on the next line, but choosing not to suggests that it is accepted in a stoical and realistic way. It also shows a refusal for his ego to be involved. He is a part of the whole, rather than distinct from it. The line still manages to capture the poignancy as well, despite, or perhaps because of, the self-restraint he shows. Through this poet’s gifts, metre and imagery are difficult to separate. Form and content are indivisible, a pre-requisite for great poetry upon which premise this essay is built.

Coates writes seamlessly in ‘Moor’:

Beyond the swell and hollow
Cold clean water
Voiced hidden ways
Sword grass warned
Clay clutched hungry
Beyond a sea of silence

Here is a brilliantly crafted use of both caesura and enjambment. The shortness of the lines has clearly set emphases, going from one sequence of stressed syllables to fewer to more again. This imitation of waves emphasises the mellowing beyond a sea of silence. The rhythm offers the reader a sense of moving towards unknown waters both real and metaphorical. The lack of punctuation enables verbs and nouns at times to be ambiguous. The style changes the relationships between the words and stresses the symbolic undercurrents. As is often the case, evocation comes not only through presentation but most strongly with its creative use of language and potential for development.

Alliteration

One of the chief ways in which Anglo Saxon poetry expressed its intentions and emphasised its meanings was through the extensive use of alliteration. Old English had fewer words than our current language, so the use of stylistic devices probably emerged as ways of appealing to the listeners. The enjoyment that was clearly aimed for would probably have been similar to that of reading stories aloud to children – or adults – today: the sounds enable the audience to take part emotionally and to relate to the actions of the characters. It helps us understand more of what makes us human and what the world is like. As Simon (2019) writes:

Alliteration is among the most haunting of our aural ghosts. Poetry is of the throat before … the brain, and alliteration is the common well-spring of English.

Thus, there is a legacy of glorious outpourings, such as one from the unfinished manuscript ‘The Battle at Finnburh’:

Then clattered the king, battle-young:

“This is no easterly dawning, no dragon flies out there,
nor here upon this hall will these horns ever burn,
yet they shall be borne aloft, while birds bicker,
grey-hamed guldering,[1] the woods of war warbling,
the shield shall meet its shaft…”

The sound of ‘clattered the king’ indicates him to be ‘battle-young’. A seasoned warrior would not be described as clatter[ing] because of its connotations of clumsiness. With dawning, no dragon, there is a lofty allusion to saga and myth, but birds bicker reveals the current situation to be far removed from the ideal. The war warbles. This offers the listener and reader painful possibilities.

The last surviving lines present us with a dark truth:

Then the watcher of his tribe learned at once
how those warriors wielded their wounds
or whether those young stalwarts…

It is a shame that the rest of the text has perished, but there is a sense in which it has not. Its rhythms remain as living possibilities. The value of the struggle survives, however much of the narrative itself has been lost. It reaches far beyond its time, as may Coates’ own work.

Coates uses alliteration less often than the Anglo-Saxon poets, but when he does, it seems to be for many of the same reasons. Of course, many poets use alliteration. What distinguishes Coates’ work from some other poetry, is that it seems less stylised. It follows his own insight about how to express himself only when such imagery is appropriate rather than with the sense of having to follow a pattern. When writers stoop to that, it becomes a mere rhetorical flourish rather than a fusion of the poet and his language. In poems like ‘Found’, there is a bold image reminiscent of an Anglo-Saxon poem:

Streaked with seepage, salt secreted, slimed,
Stank. 

The evocation of disgust is unmistakeable, amplified by the inner near-rhymes and the generous use of alliteration. This example offers another reason why poetry needs to be read aloud; the sounds represent the illumination of the protagonist’s own purposes: his search for eventual equilibrium and peace. Later in the poem, however, the careful use of alliteration shows us a much gentler and more wholesome experience:

I remember her hunker down to a frightened child,
Close his coat - a caress.
Smile into his eyes until
He held up the silver mirror of his courage
And smiled in return. 

The line, “He held up the silver mirror of his courage”, exerts a powerful allure for the reader, having already experienced the alliteration of close his coat – a caress. The beautiful juxtaposition of the metaphor the silver mirror of his courage offers the reader a sense of hope through true connection. It is believed that this kind of intricate usage of imagery, may exert a healing power over the reader/listener (Walker, 2016) in ways that manifest old and new truths. According to Raab (2019) the American poet, Henry David Thoreau, said:

If we sit in a clearing long enough, the animals will come out of the woods and
present themselves.     

In ‘The Seafarer’, a similar use of alliteration, this time to accentuate loss, is evident:

Now there are no rulers, no emperors,
No givers of gold, as once there were,
When wonderful things were worked among them
And they lived in lordly magnificence.
Those powers have vanished, those pleasures are dead
The weakest survives and the world continues.

This stanza is reminiscent of lines from an English hymn (Struthers, 1931) evoking epic times and made even more powerful when it is sung:

Though back into storyland giants have fled,
And the knights are no more, and the dragons are dead…

The poignancy of loss is striking in all the above examples. The alliteration offers the sense of timelessness that engenders a profound resonance. This poetry is not just about its own time.

Kennings

The word comes from the Old Norse ‘Ad Kenna’ which means ‘to know’ or ‘to understand. A good kenning sears right into your soul and plays music on your heart strings. A good kenning turns something ordinary into something majestic and ancient; a really good kenning makes you want to abandon single words all together and speak entirely in the rhythmic, lyrical, riddle-verse that pounds like a skin drum before battle (Steinmann, 2019).    

Another derivation of ‘kenning’ is the modern German verb ‘kennen’, which means to know, but to know a person. That further meaning develops the sense of closeness between the poet and the ways in which language are related.

Kennings as a type of metaphor have become part of our modern English language with configurations like ‘Bookworm’ or ‘Tree Hugger’. One of the most powerful dimensions of poetry is its use of metaphor, which cannot be reduced to analysis (Jakobs and Huening, 2022). It offers a way in to join the poet on their journey and understand it from the inside. Metaphor opens outwards as well as inwards. It enriches the spirit and communicates the deepest human truths. It is something that can be returned to for a lifetime, each time with the possibility that the reader has travelled inwardly as well as outwardly. Great poetry is expressed with language that startles and never cloys. Metaphor offers one of the greatest sources available to a human being to denote the essential unknowingness of being, whilst at the same time offering glimpses that illuminate and inform the texture of reality itself. As Parse (2022) states:

[There are] three metaphorical truths - semantic resonance, coherent integrity, and magical transfiguring (p. 1).

These lenses give us ways to see how Coates and the Anglo-Saxon poets relate to truth. Related to this, there is a distinct cogency in the Anglo-Saxon poets’ use of words as they were still in the processes of creating and trying out the language and embedding it culturally, rather than using old stock. The early poets placed two (or sometimes more) words – usually nouns – together to point towards something else and enrich the whole. This was to engage the audience, but it may well have been a celebration of language itself. Anglo Saxon kennings stemmed from the desire to evoke deep truths and spell-binding atmospheres for their listeners, originally coined from alliteration. It is an interesting contrast from how compound nouns are often used today.

For example, in ‘Beowulf’ there are multiple kennings, such as:

• Light of Battle – Sword
• Shepherd of Evils – Grendel
• Heaven’s Candle – Sun
• Whale Path – Ocean
• Wave Floater – Ship
• Earth’s Lamplight – Sun

From one of Coates’ Old Poems beginning, ‘In solitude’, the use of the kenning “winter’s frozen crying”, offers more than a description of snow. Through it we are drawn into the protagonist’s worldview through a pathetic fallacy as well as a metaphor. The image takes root and offers something for the reader to experience in ways that enrich meaning.

In ‘The Wanderer’, the kenning ‘spirit chest’ is described in the following way by the translator (Shmoop, 2024):

Thinking about revealing his innermost thoughts causes the earth-stepper  to reflect on something he knows ‘for truth’: that it's good for a warrior to ‘bind fast his spirit’. …In Old English, the word translated here as "spirit" is ferðlocan, which literally means ‘spirit-chest’ and probably refers to the mind. So, it's good for a warrior to bind fast his mind, which might mean to keep his thoughts to himself. This image of the mind suggests that thoughts are something priceless and precious, to be guarded carefully and only revealed to those you trust.

This mirrors the earlier quotation from Coates, to share meaning was to share mind, and strengthens the links to be made between his and Anglo-Saxon poetry at their roots. It gives voice to a sense of inner significance, rather than simply outward actions and descriptions.

In the last verse of ‘Charity’, Coates offers this:

A green land's blessings
The wind's words
Pass the cup in their turn.

His kenning, the wind’s words, summarises the power of what has been accumulated, and its effects on the future. Language permeates more than people. Coates’ use of this medium highlights the relationship between human beings and Nature, rather than seeing them as separate.

Another kenning arises in ‘Hagalaz’ (Disruption) in the ‘Runes poetry, when Coates describes the path as “arched leaf-ways”, reinforcing the sense of times long past as they now show themselves in the present. Later he writes about feeling white cold which takes the reader to another season. This offers the reader a sense of the passing of time to something less fruitful.

The following extended metaphor also offers the reader a sense of timelessness:

I was with you on the moon-reflecting sands,
By the campfire under the foothills,
Candle-lit in the attic,
With the distant sounds of the city.

The power of these lines evoke memory, but not necessarily a personal one. They resonate, perhaps with a sense of Jung’s collective unconscious (Jung, 1968), because despite not having had these particular memories, readers from many different cultures would likely feel some resonance here (Watling, 2021). Coates’ stage is the whole world and its history, as it is in Anglo-Saxon poetry. In ‘The Wanderer’, the poet describes something easily recognisable:

…some war took,
carried on the way forth; one a bird carried off
over the high sea; one the grey wolf shared with Death;
one a sad-faced nobleman buried in an earth pit.

A lovely kenning appears in ‘Judith’ within a gentle evocation of the heroine, and with discernible pagan resonance:

That was on the fourth day
when Judith, wise in her thought,
a woman elf-brilliant, first sought him. 

Elves had many different connotations in Anglo-Saxon times, ranging from sorcery to physical and inner beauty, but often relating to the idea that human beings all have good and bad in them. The above kenning, appearing as it does near the beginning of the poem, offers the reader a clear sense of the integrity and beauty of the heroine and symbolises her inner goodness.

Simile

Unlike the Anglo-Saxon poets, Coates often uses similes. ‘Beowulf’, the longest-surviving Anglo-Saxon poem (about 3000 lines) contains only seven similes, but dozens of kennings. One example, like a man outlawed for wickedness, is a rather bland description of Grendel, whereas one kenning describes him as Shepherd of Evils, no doubt conjuring up fear and dread in the audience just as the author would have wanted. There are, however, some powerful similes, for example:

Every nail, claw-scale and spur, every spike and welt on the hand of that heathen brute was like barbed steel.

The image is powerful because of the unusual sharpness of the metre and use of alliteration for accentuation. In ‘The Battle of Maldon’, similes illuminate deeper themes in the narrative:

killed by wounds:
he lay like a true thane close to his lord… 

This accentuates the issue of loyalty, which gives status to the action, and such a merging will be discussed later on under ‘Language and Values’.

In many of Coates’ more recent poems, similes are also prevalent. From August 2023 for example:

We parted but like a true friend
She’ll be there at the end. 

The simile, together with the metre, accentuates the meaning and the sense of loyalty. It needs to be pointed out, however, that this loyalty is not a blind one. It is not taken for granted in a casual way. Just as with the Anglo-Saxon poets, loyalty is tempered with steel and has within it an ontological imperative.

Coates’ use of simile can be remarkably gentle in tone:

He showed me lapis lazuli
Flecked like stars in the night sky…

The description is magical, with an immanent sense of love, and needs no metaphor because it is indicating itself. Yet this evocation is rich in unspoken dimensions, allusions that are relatable as well as beautiful. A similar use is apparent in ‘Tidings’:

Called from the warm mists hanging like birdsong…

The simile here isn’t simply about meaning and sound, but a timeless memory. Finding an eternity in birdsong is not a literal truth but an image that makes it possible. A reader can experience a moment when it is true. His use of simile can also suggest something mundane, however. In ‘Garden’, we see:

Swirls around simple truths
Like the sea around an island.

It is a very clever use of the phrase simple truths, and much of Coates’ poetry seems to aim for something Oliver Wendell Holmes (Senior) (1860) wanted:

For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn’t give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, I would give you everything I have.

Coates’ use of language here is almost a metaphor masquerading as a simile, and the melding brings us closer to Eliot’s timeless intersection with time, but Coates brings us there, rather than merely describing it.

Themes:

The following two sections under Religion and Beliefs, and Heroes, are symptomatic of significant similarities and differences between the two sets. Other themes that emerge in both are myths, time, sadness and loss, love, stoicism, quests, a human life, and its relationship to the natural world.

Religion & Beliefs

Christopher Hitchens (2010) gave a speech about the influence on human beings of  Christian morality. He says:

Name at least one moral action that a person without a faith (e.g., an atheist or antitheist) could not possibly perform, and conversely, to name one immoral action that only a person with a faith could perform or has performed in the past.

That human beings only understand how to live a good life because of lessons learnt from a monotheistic religion, is antithetical to Coates’ own worldview. It is claimed in his poetry that the religion so vividly defended across the centuries and in the world, has in fact been corrupted and that Christian authority has forcibly substituted truth with self-interest and an all-pervading abuse of power.

Although much Anglo-Saxon poetry alludes to Christian doctrine, this does not mean that such values are entirely to be claimed by Christians as their exclusive domain. Chaney (1960), Donahue (1965), and Rollinson (1973), argue that the religious allusions were likely to have been included because they were required by public opinion at the time. In addition, there is evidence that although the poems were read aloud, they were often written down by Christian monks decades or centuries later, as they were the only people who could write and would therefore be in a position to add any Christian dimensions they chose (Irving, 1984).

This kind of abuse of power is mirrored in Coates’ poem, ‘Faith’:

Once did I follow the great leader of your clan
He is the man who let me down
And once did follow a holy book,
(promoted after careful editing by Emperors)

Human beings are not ciphers, but they can be trained to act like them as Orwell (1949) argued. Religious faith can behave as a pernicious force in human existence and disable individuals, groups, communities, and whole countries from taking full ownership and responsibility for their own lives and circumstances. As a result, religion is a common theme in Coates’ poetry especially in the more recent poetry.

Coates often uses Christian imagery. For example, in ‘In Particular’, he writes:

The scent of denial in the temple
dawn of three cock crows and the one-instant
a needle pricks the finger of a bride
with all time threaded through the eye of it…

However, it is not to aggrandise but to deny its continuing power, to offer contrary points of view. ‘Heretic’s Prayer’ is a bold renunciation of any creed or dogma. It is reproduced in full here, because it is symptomatic of Coates’ work in terms of style, focus, and values.

Kneel?
Not while I can still stand.
Not on your words.
Not on your gleanings from an old scroll,
From whence the words came.
The words of a poet remembering.
Remembering the deeds of a remarkable man.
Why should I not praise him,
Whose voice has echoed across aeons?
But you are no more than maggots,
Stuffed with the rotten flesh of dogma,
Truth’s bones untouched,
You would corrupt me with your mouthings.
Chained in this cell, hauled before judges,
Sour food, beatings, cold,
You would force my spirit into your mould?

Miracles, you say.
It would be miracle enough
If the bad water of our wedding here
Were turned into the wine of humanity
By the spirit of a good man.
I would welcome such a turning,
Such a wine,
Such a man.

What is particularly noteworthy here, apart from its powerful use of imagery, is the poet’s respect for the man on whom the religion was based. He is, however, angered by how Jesus’ character has been commandeered by those who desire power, adoration, and earthly riches for themselves. He does not allow himself to be biased against the man because of what happened in his name. Indeed, he stands up for the values of the man and shows him respect:

I would welcome such a turning,
Such a wine,
Such a man.

The metre of the last two, shorter lines channels sincerity and simplicity. And it is these two qualities that have been exploited in order to gain control. The history of religion can be seen as the history of oppression, which has weakened the human spirit with its requirement for conformity and self-denial (Dawkins, 2008). It is a very efficient method of control.

He outlines the impotence of religion for good in ‘Sarah’s Sonnet’:

The searcher looking at the sky, learning.
True to visions in dusty Arcanum,
Nature abhors the distant star’s yearning.
Of finding, there is not a word to shed.
God is living still and yet god is dead

The neat juxtaposition of God with ‘god’ encapsulates Coates’ view of religious adherence. The exchanging of G with g is a cogent demonstration of how the mighty are fallen. In ‘Prayer of a Sick Man’, he includes this:

On Sunday they took me to the garden
I fed the bonfire with sticks and litter.
I remember bitter thoughts.
If god had not become man, more might have been said
About how men become god.
And women, who seem more connected, might have helped them face their fear
Instead of praying to some resurrected corpse.

The central idea:

If god had not become man, more might have been said
About how men become god…

holds the quintessence of Coates’ fierce objections to organised religion: it curtails human beings’ ability to reach their full potential or indeed to take full responsibility for their own actions.

Of course, this kind of condemnation would not have been possible during the times of conversion to Christianity and its apparent wholehearted acceptance in Anglo-Saxon poetry. That does not mean that individuals did not take responsibility for their deeds without resorting to religious beliefs. ‘The Wanderer’ tells us:

So spoke the wise in spirit, sat by himself in private meditation.
He who is good keeps his pledge, nor shall the man ever manifest
the anger of his breast too quickly, unless he, the man,
should know beforehand how to accomplish the remedy with courage.

That kind of introspection is something that also permeates Coates’ poetry as in ‘Listen’, although the musings are less optimistic:

…And so in time it was forgotten

That the gods are greater than mankind

The priests grew fat on their lies

The people blessed or cursed.


The gods are unmoved and hear nothing

The people are become foolish and proud.

One day, perhaps soon in their insolence

The rain will simply wash them away.

The key passage in the Wanderer’s musings seem to be about how a man needs to live with honour, to keep a promise and control his temper, to act with courage rather than on mere impulse. People should reflect on their situation and able to make up their own minds on how to act, as long as that action is honourable. However, the final lines show an allegiance to an external reason for the behaviour:

It will be well for him who seeks grace
comfort from the Father in the heavens, where a fastness
stands for us all.

This essay cannot claim that the Christian sentiment above is insincere, but it seems to be stylised, to be what is expected. It may well be an example of an altered manuscript, which seems more likely as it is at the end of the poem and would therefore be easy to add it. Whether it is or not, though, the Wanderer is still acting from a sense of what he has learnt to be the right thing to do, despite the difficulty. There is integrity in that undertaking.

The eponymous heroine, Judith, however, is one of many retellings of the Christian tale as it still exists in the ‘Book of Judith’ in the Catholic and Orthodox Bibles (Gera, 2010). The Christian sentiments are woven into the text:

Then she readily found there
 protection from the famous Lord, when she had most need
 of favour from the Highest Judge, the Wielder of Creation
 so that he should protect her, against the highest terror.

For that reason the glorious Father in heaven 
performed her boon, so that she always possessed strong faith 
in the Almighty.

In August 2015, Coates wrote the following condemnation of religious beliefs:

…It's the difficult down hill.
The return to nothing special.
The gloom of those that go sooner.
The idiocy of religion.
The mass refusal to look at it.

It should scare you but not too much.
It should provide criteria for every action...

Given you are tiny, powerless, insignificant, and temporary.
Not to mention ignorant.

How should you continue.


Thoughtless, angry, fools.

Sheep

Liars

Blind men

Sleepwalkers

The best times may be over...

How to stay grateful?


If your life is right then will your death be.

He shows us a raw view of what life is when it is entirely disconnected from any deity. As an alternative, he offers us a sense of gratitude for life itself, rather than ascribing it to a god. His chief beliefs are in the worthwhileness of life for its own sake, and human beings’ capacities to make the most of it. Some of his poetry is clearly focusing on the belief that true fulfilment in life is made all the more difficult because of the corruption of religion ideology. All of his poetry is clear about human’s individual and collective responsibility for their own actions. If your life is right then will your death be.

From here we look at other spiritual beliefs. Both sets of poetry show an interest in Runes, Coates with a set of seventeen poems in the 1990s, and only one poem remaining from Anglo Saxon times. There may have been more, as many poems in manuscript form were lost, or survive only as fragments.

Coates writes some of the most lyrical lines in his whole collection, as in ‘Berkana’ (Growth):

Last night I spoke at the dream-telling
A flower growing in the mouth of a white corpse
A fiery bird nesting in the heart of the flower
Spirits from the bleak stones.

In ‘Gebo’ (Gift) he offers this:

Beyond the town over the north rim is the coming night
I can see dust and, on spear tips, a glint from the fading light.

His Runes poetry reveals a sense of timelessness and otherworldliness that adds to their aesthetic depth but also to a vital dimension of truth, that of human shared experience, whether directly or by inference. These poems are both metaphysical and deeply in touch with reality. Scruton (2015) writes about this matching of the everyday with the metaphysical:

[Great] poetry is concerned with truth as a kind of revelation, an ‘unconcealing’ of aspects of existence that lie hidden from us in our everyday encounters with the world. Poetry transforms those aspects of reality it so presents, bestowing value upon them and infusing them with new forms of meaning. In this respect, in poetry we find a genuinely creative interest in truth.

It is an interesting point of contrast that Coates’ evocations from the runes, are more magical in atmosphere than those of the poem ‘The Runes’ from the older era. This has some flowing lines and striking imagery, but it is quite pragmatic in its intentions.

The oak is fodder for flesh on earth
for the sons of men. 
It frequently ferries
over the gannet’s bath. 
The spear-waves test
 whether the oak possesses reliability for noble men…

The grave is terrible to every earl,
 
when the fixed flesh begins, 
the corpse cooling, 
to choose the earth 
paleness as its bedmate. 
Fruits fail,
 joys depart, mankind ceases to be.

The use of kennings is illuminating of the inner truths of the verses. Coates also delves into issues of alchemy, which is a powerful metaphor for magical transformation, something he believes to be immanent within human beings. The poem is a rippling of sensations, allusions, insights, and ends with an invitation to imagine what happens next. In ‘Alchemist’, he revels in mystical realities, showing wonder that there is no god that has created everything, but it is still a miracle.

what sweet alchemy this is.
swirling together of ethers and dirt
convolution within
the histories of nations
the nuances of a text
the softness of your lips
reflections crystallised
turning towards what light
what hand touches
what bliss is this.
who is the alchemist
that makes such pungent marvels
chaos that makes these
light looking for a candle
an eye looking for a soul
blood and sulphur
and the agonising distillation of essence
a hand poised above the flask
finger and thumb waiting for the just moment
a snake that bites its own tail
victim or transgressor
lover or gift
such a point with no position
no transition
choose, don't choose
airs of a word
the flare of a match lights
base gold  

And the reader is left in wonder. This is the power of evocation, a sense of something beyond reach – and yet in our imaginations, in our creativity and lives, we can realise something of the magic and become more human. This poem also emphasises the interaction of values with language to create realities.

Heroes

The concept of ‘hero’ has changed in the millennium between the ancient and modern world. It can now be used in ways which don’t have the connotations of unusual courage. In modern literature, ‘hero’ has become synonymous with male protagonist and ‘heroine’ with female protagonist, without any necessary connotations of courage and honour. It is therefore reasonable to assume that the word has been narrowed in both status and significance.

The inner meaning of ‘hero’ acquired huge status in the ancient poetry, because of the values that accompanied it and their place in the epics it created. It was a kind of ideal, and Coates’ understanding of it in the modern world also imbues it with what now feels like a timeless understanding of the inner meanings of the word. More will be discussed in the final section about Language and Values.

In ‘Circle of Silver’, Coates deliberates on the notion of a hero in ‘Boy’:

Beyond the school room
A secret straw-pungent den,
Elbows and knees raw.
They had climbed the tree of their terror,
Learned a leader and a follower 
Needed each other
For courage.
Still trembling from fear,
Pledged a brotherhood of blood,
Sucked sugar solemnly.
Listened to a distant storm.
With a hero’s disdain.

Young hero
At a silver wedding feast.
Released the power of his prayer.
Sat beside his blue-eyed cousin fair
In silent communion.
A storm broke in him, a vast emptiness 
His ancient aunt, brided anew
Held him to her
Reached across the chasm and each knew the other
And knew not, where,
For a moment.

He offers a boy’s sense of heroism from within a familial setting, a reaching across the generations, a notion of purity and trust and love. Later, from a poem also written in his younger days, he asks the question in a poem called ‘Heroes’:

And if we are to be heroes,
Heroes of what cause?

This question is answered, in his own cultural context, by Beowulf himself, and also the main figures in the Battle of Maldon, ‘The Seafarer’ and ‘The Wanderer’. In his very early poem, ‘The Ruin’, Coates considers the effects of religion on human destiny:

Once a place of silent prayer
Gloomy halls and incensed air
Where men of faith would kneel, before
Their gilded image of heaven’s door.

Now the windows frame the dreams unborn
The statue’s niche now empty and forlorn.
Beneath the grass, past heroes fade away
Will the men of hope now have their day?

Here, heroes creating epics are no more, so now all we can do is hope. However, sitting around and expecting someone else to take responsibility for one’s own feelings and expectations is the antithesis of Coates’ philosophy. He suggests that heroism is about taking personal responsibility for one’s own actions in the world, despite its difficulty, despite whether it will be approved of by society, despite even if it goes against the person’s own needs.

In a poem written about the same time, he offers insights into the moral dilemmas of modern life. It tells the story of a traveller from another race and location coming to the end of his life.

…His road till then had been as straight
As his aim had been so clear.
But the day grew late and the wind grew cold
And he knew his time was near.
He had learned much upon his road and was versed in ancient lore.
But now that the way divided he needed something more.
Legend said that the choice at the form was as the tolling of a bell.
For it was the place where the world would know
Whether a man went on or fell.
So, our traveller paused, and his breath was slow.
The sky went dark there was only a glow
From the moon and stars and all was still.

Then came the dawn with the morning light
And no-one knows whether left or right
was the stranger’s route on that fateful night.

And the only way that we know at all
That the man went on and didn’t fall
Is by the fact that today
This is no fork, only a road
And the way people talk.
About how to choose between wrong and right
And listening to the gods
And the mystery of night. 

Which road to travel is a clear metaphor, also written about by Robert Frost (1979), for how one needs to make responsible and fair decisions. In Coates’ poem, the way of being is the meaning of the traveller’s life. This man has evolved to the highest state of self-awareness and passes on his wisdom to others at no cost. His life is peaceful, and he flows with all the enchantment of a strong and kind spirit. He forces nothing, he achieves great things through being himself. He even influences language – we can assume for the better – and then he dies. This is Coates’ idea of heroism.

In ‘The Wanderer’, the protagonist looks back at his battle-filled life and recognises everything that has been lost despite the aims of his younger self. He laments some of his past and comes face-to-face with the ever-changing nature of life.

He who deeply contemplates this wall-stead,
And this dark life with wise thought old spirit,
often remembers long ago
a multitude of battles and speaks these words:
Where is the horse? Where is the young warrior? Where is the giver of treasure?
Where are the seats of the banquets? Where are the joys in the hall?
Alas the bright cup. Alas the mailed warrior.
Alas the glory of the prince. How the time has gone
Vanished under the night’s helm
As if it never were…

The shadow of night grows dark, sends from the north
A rough shower of hail in enmity to the warriors
All the kingdom of earth is full of trouble,
The operation of the fates changes the world under the heavens.
Here wealth is transitory, here friend is transitory
Here man is transitory, here woman is transitory.

There is something matter-of-fact about his reflections, rather than any self-pity or self-aggrandisement. He shares that with the travelling hero earlier.

At Beowulf’s wake, which occurs years after his slaying of the monsters Grendel and his mother, his poet offers us a description of those attending the ceremony:

All of them distraught, chanting in dirges,
mourning his loss, as a man and a king.
They extolled his heroic nature and exploits
and gave thanks for his greatness; which was the proper thing,
for a man should praise a prince whom he holds dear
and cherish his memory when that moment comes
when he has to be convoyed from his bodily home…

There is much in the above excerpts that associates heroism with society’s expectations but also shows due respect. Coates writes in ‘Jera’ (Harvest):

Today they buried him with honours
Black suited figures walked slowly past
We were glad to see so many unknown people
To mark their thanks at the last.

Both poets see that genuine heroes do more than fight battles externally, but also adhere to principles within, in order to respect, protect and nurture a just society as well as living in ways that demonstrate positive traits.

It is clear that ‘Beowulf’ is an epic poem about heroism, but it is not simply a tale about going off and killing monsters. At its heart it is about courage, loyalty and even kindness. Rather than killing other men for political and social advantage, Beowulf seeks out the monsters who have been destroying his people and rids his society of them. This is, in that context, heroic. After he has vanquished Grendel and his mother, he returns home.

Across the wide sea, desolate and alone,
the son of Ecgtheow swam back to his people.
There Hygd offered him throne and authority
as lord of the ring-hoard: with Hygelac dead,
she had no belief in her son’s ability
to defend their homeland against foreign invaders.
Yet there was no way the weakened nation
could get Beowulf to give in and agree
to be elevated over Heardred as his lord
or to undertake the office of kingship.
But he did provide support for the prince,
honoured and minded him until he matured
as the ruler of Geatland. 

He puts kindness, loyalty and constancy before his own self-interest. Finally, he has a confrontation with another monster, and one loyal warrior, Wiglaf, supports him. The others flee, and despite Wiglaf’s efforts on behalf of his Lord, the hero is killed. He dies, however, whilst doing his best, by keeping his word and not failing in spirit despite the odds.

In its time, this demonstrates qualities which Coates creates in his own poetry now, albeit from differing perspectives. In November 2020, we see this:

Ah, courage. Have you deserted us all?
The uncaring cancer, the dying host,
The graph plot, the last chapter.
 
Noise is flooding explanation
Lies are burning understanding
False hope poisons silent despair.

Take heed human, be grateful where you can,
Open your eyes, listen to what is real.
Dare to hope and dare not to hope.

As Beowulf showed us, courage comes from within. He and Wiglaf have it, their companions do not. Coates’ reminder, dare to hope and dare not to hope is a profound comment on the necessity for courage to see life as it is, rather than to bemoan its reality.

And the final word here goes to the Seafarer, who, with his last lines, expresses something that Coates fully understands:

The world's honour ages and shrinks,
Bent like the men who mould it.

Archetypes and Individuation

Two concepts are presented under one heading because they are profoundly linked (Adler et al., (eds) 2023). The following definition of an archetype in poetry supports the central tenet of this essay, that there are profound links between Coates’ and Anglo-Saxon poetry in terms of their assimilation of archetypes.

Archetypes emerge in literature from the ‘collective unconscious’ of the human race … [They are] the symbolic patterns that recur within the world of literature itself. In both approaches, archetypical themes include birth, death, sibling rivalry, and the individual versus society. Archetypes may also be images or characters, such as the hero, the lover, the wanderer, or the matriarch (Poetry Foundation, 2024).

It is the contention of this essay that Coates’ poetry transcends the times in which it is written. He sees the bigger picture and depicts it in ways that evoke ancient myths and cultures as a way of expressing deeper truths about the human condition. His poetry reveals a very clear understanding of his own place within existence.

Anglo-Saxon poetry also includes deliberations on the meaning of life and sets many of its narratives against an archetypal background. In other words, there are recurring symbols or motifs in the poetry that resonate with the reader as ancient myths. This may account for the older poetry’s survival in modern consciousness with such figures as Grendel in ‘Beowulf’.

Coates often alludes to archetypes, for example in ‘Dragon’:

My love, I’m setting out
This very day’s my day
Are you the last
Farewell
Or the first
Dragon
On
My
Way

His use of archetype is reminiscent of tales of dragons and dastardly deeds, and yet the course of his own individuation becomes increasingly apparent in his poetry, with the immanence of the universe revealed as his texts mature over the years.

Gladring, for example, is an epic figure, written in epic style, perhaps an early experiment in seeing what he could do. It is entirely fitting, and clearly no coincidence, that his poetry began with ‘Gladring’ because of the embodiment of the values in it. More recently his poetry has dealt with issues of climate change, wars, religious intolerance, social erosion, and yet there is still, shining like jewels, expressions of an archetypal belief in the cosmos, and poetic evocations of realities beyond our five senses.

From Mindfulness:

I will anchor myself to a fair wind.
I will float in life’s ocean astounded, 
Open to the changing world,
Infinite, unbounded. 

From ‘Meet’:

I visit the garden over and over
The place where human meets divine
Echoes in the faint breeze

The brass horn has blown challenge
Meet at dawn’s crack
Final doom or damnation

Melt into the blown grasses
Let the storms pass
Unmet

Dance until the closing light
Sing of each true friend
Well met. 

Returning to Gladring as an archetype, his aura reverberates with ancient myths and legends:

Yet in his grace there was a strength controlled
His shield and sword were hard and cold
And if some news of evil came
Men shuddered at his eyes aflame…

The imagery is Anglo-Saxon, as it describes Gladring as the beginning ‘hard and cold’, and ‘his eyes aflame’, every bit the man of action. Yet his manner with Pallone, is of a different hue:

Though he was much loved by one and all
upon no man did his friendship truly fall
one heart alone called music to his own
That of his mare called by Pallone.
Few words of her are ever heard
Save how she seemed to know his every word
How she’d ride through hell if Gladring bid
No other loved as Pallone could and did.

He represents a man of his designated time, but he has characteristics that ennoble the text through the contrast with the decay in some modern values (DeSilva, 2017). What is of further interest here is that the poem seems to embody both the anima and animus of Jung’s configuration of archetypes. Pallone can be seen as personifying the female dimensions of the hero. Whether this was consciously written or not, is not the point. It can be interpreted that way, as such an interpretation doesn’t limit the poetry but possibly points to deeper realms. It adds a potentially rich dimension of meaning and significance to the whole and opens up potential avenues of accord between reader and poet. Without these kinds of depths in poetry, words become more akin to prose.

What is also significant about the use of archetypes, is how it reveals Gladring’s own personal growth. He finally knows himself and the world he lives in. He comes to terms with his own misgivings, losses, and disappointments. He faces his doom with courage and honour, qualities heralded by the vivid narrative to close the poem.

Until at last he came to where the witch he’d found
And there Pallone silent stood her ground
For she’d been granted her request
By the Lords of where she’d been at rest.
Her master had one more final deed.
A horse of death could be his only steed.
Once again their hearts together burned
To seek the witch towards the night they turned.

The ending is poignant and reminiscent of the beginning of ‘The Seafarer’ in its ability to enable the audience to experience what remains unwritten. Evocation is a central ability of a poet in maintaining interest and engagement, as well as evolving trust in the writer.

This tale is true, and mine. It tells
How the sea took me, swept me back
And forth in sorrow and fear and pain,
Showed me suffering in a hundred ships,
In a thousand ports, and in me.

In addition to the lack of ego discussed earlier in terms of imagery, there is also a sense of timelessness here, of someone looking back at life and seeing what was real as well as what was desired. It is redolent of archetypes and would surely speak to any age. Coates writes in ‘If’ (2021):

Stay a while with the last warm lights of life’s long blaze.
My fierce mother went so quietly. Her body and
a vacant smile took longer.
My soul brother went with all at full force
at high speed, with no need.
My gentle father’s dull and lonely days, didn’t
grumble, much. Didn’t try, much.
Disappointment tries to find a way around it.
You could sooner eat a mountain
But a travesty of existence, it is not,
If all is considered it is a necessary condition of
existence.

He is more pragmatic than the Seafarer, but his comments are realistic, rather than  judgemental. His poetry is his way of expressing the ebb and flow of life, and the sense we can make of it by trying our best. The people evoked in the poem are real, but they are also reminiscent of the fate of all human beings.

Tales from countries around the world from ancient to modern times have woven stories around demons and animal spirits, goblins, spectres, and monsters of the deep (Berk, 2016). Another archetype is the interesting creation of Grendel, who can be seen through the light of Jung’s insights into the shadow.):

All were endangered; young and old
were hunted down by that dark death-shadow
who lurked and swooped in the long nights
on the misty moors; nobody knows
where these reavers from hell roam on their errands.

Coates writes about such shadows in ‘Prayer for the Dead’:

I know men and women ridden by fear’s demons,
Eyes masked, ears blocked, words choked,
Nightsbane and ergot,
Smoke filled aisles.

The difference is that Coates’ knows that such emanations are not external but manifestations of an inner psyche and need not to be destroyed but integrated within the whole self, which is an aspect of the development of individuation. The concept of individuation in this essay concurs with the following definition (Schlamm, 2013):

[It is] the process by which a person becomes a psychological individual, a separate indivisible unity or whole, recognising his innermost uniqueness… [Jung] identified this process with becoming one’s own self or self-realisation, which he distinguished from ‘ego-centredness’ and individualism.

This writing is not an anachronistic attempt to claim that the ancient poets strove for individuation, an idea coined by Jung a thousand years later. However, it is argued that their poetry attests to an innate desire to attain a full humanity through certain precepts relating in their context to heroism as well as nobility of character.

Coates’ striving for individuation is conscious, which is evident in his poetry, his life, and his works (Coates, 2019; 2024; Whitlark, n.d.). He seeks the way of a warrior without violence, and this will also be elaborated on in the section on Language and Values. Archetypes are embedded within both Coates’ and the ancient writings, and both embody the values that can lead to individuation.

In Anglo-Saxon poetry, the heroes tend to live out the expectations of the society in which they grew up. An individuated person is not swayed by public opinion but will take all angles into account before making decisions. Thus, Coates asks in ‘Heroes’: A hero for what cause? His poetry reflects greater personal development through a lack of dependence on the conclusions of others. Anglo Saxon protagonists like Beowulf were battling much stronger social norms, and yet against the advice of others, at the end of his story he rides out to meet his doom anyway, because he believes it to be the right thing to do. After all, someone has to protect the people. He does not wait around to see who else might take it on. He does it himself, because he realises that the responsibility lies with the individual as well as with the citizen.

 The Wanderer also muses on life:

A man must wait, when he speaks a boast,
until, stout-hearted, he knows for certain
whither the thought of the heart may wish to turn.
The prudent man must realize how ghastly it will be
when all the wealth of this world stands waste…

The individual has responsibility for the world, which is beautifully expressed by the Talmudic saying:

For anybody who destroys a single life it is counted as if he destroyed an entire world, and for anybody who preserves a single life it is counted as if he preserved an entire world.

It is in the way that one lives that can have enormous influence. In both sets of poetry, it is evident that the poets believe that the way adults conduct themselves must stem from the development of a rigorous self-awareness. It comes with the realisation that maturity isn’t simply about increasing age but acquiring wisdom about the responsibility to reach one’s full potential and act on it. This would seem to be one of the most pressing needs of our times, which Coates’ poetry holds at its core, particularly in the poetry written in the 21st century. For example, he writes:

Can we be the silver smiths of our own reflection
Or sculptors of our future being,
Every conscious moment,
A shaving closer to our revelation?

His answer to that is that yes, it is possible, but that does not mean the world is saved. His idealism is not naïve. Its presence is important in its own right because it stands for a more humane and integrated way of being in the world. He does not avoid the painful, the dark and the despair of not-knowing, when knowing is something he values. If he does not know, then he tries to find out.

In ‘Long Grass’ (2016), he tells us about life as exploration:

I spent the day searching in the long grass. 
I found wrought iron hardened by beating  
But to no edge. 
I met angels who turned into phantoms  
When they were kissed. 
Perhaps, I thought, if I could forget 
If there weren't so many fragments, traces,  
Lingering scents. 
I might simply be there with the wind  
Stirring grassy waves, green intimacy 
Not this gut clenching 

Still searching. Could I not not understand ? 
Why is the knowledge of futility  
Insufficient? 
I spent the day searching in the long grass 
Stinging with small cuts 
Hunched. Stiff. Cold. 

When the scythes have been 
And the way is clear.  
Perhaps it's better 
Just to be old. 

Coates’ poetry offers a kind of pragmatic idealism. His belief in the potential of human beings to achieve great things is another leit-motif, and one that adds to the legacy his poetry lays claim to.

Language & Values

Trust is a fundamental prerequisite for human language (Coates, 2022).

Speak clearly if you speak at all.
Carve every word before you let it fall (Wendell Holmes, 2007).

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time (Eliot, 2002).

The genesis of the Anglo-Saxon word scop – meaning poet – comes from sciepan, meaning ‘to shape’. A poet was a shaper, someone to shape words into epics. In other words, as Valdes Miyares (2019) points out, expression then was a blend of what Malinowski defined as both the magical and the pragmatic functions of language. The implication is that poetry can shape reality through profound interpersonal yet unseen influence, which adds weight to something that Shelley (1821) wrote:

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

The writing of this essay has brought the above into sharp relief in regard to both sets of poetry, because they are concerned with profound values, which are not to be eroded over time, but must stand tall on order for the world to be at peace. There is clearly a connection between the quality of poetry and the quality of the times in which we live.

The intuition that writing this comparative study would be fruitful, came after first reading ‘Gladring’, that wonderfully youthful poem, full of aspirations to honour, nobility, courage, fidelity, truth, kindness, love, and above all integrity. What is most compelling about this comparison is in the ways in which both sets of poetry often fuse their language with the values underlying their insights.

Several kennings demonstrate this from the epic poets. ‘Widsith’ begins:

[He] came to talk, unlocking his word-hoard.

As well as an opening designed to elicit instant attention from the audience, the compound noun, ‘word-hoard’ draws us in deeper. The kenning refers to a treasure chest (Valdés Miyares, 2019), and that alone denotes the respect for language that was behind so much of Anglo-Saxon writing. Words are not expendable, but precious and experienced directly. One of the allures of this kind of language is that it does not simply denote something; at its purest, it is the thing itself. That quality would appear to be rare, particularly in the modern age, when language is perceived as expendable and having more use-value than intrinsic value.

‘Beowulf’ also makes use of this configuration:

The leader of the troop unlocked his word-hoard;
the distinguished one delivered this answer.

It is fascinating that Anglo-Saxon had no direct word for ‘honour’, despite the narratives depending upon it. The word was defined through kennings, which show the integrity of the value at its source. The foundational meaning, from which honour was eventually derived, was rendered as weorð, which translates as ‘worth’. It was combined with other words to offer the listener a sense of the specific value being described without having to state it. The inferences from such a lovely evocation then help to keep the language alive, rather than simply descriptive. That the term ‘honour’ wasn’t explicit, meant that the language could develop into a single expression. It is a sad reflection that the word has become corrupted in the modern age (‘honour-killings’, for example) and become unfashionable as a value.

‘Honour’ as it appears in ‘Beowulf’ is coined by the kenning, mind’s worth. That honour should stem from the value of the mind is both astounding and logical given the poetic background and the values of the time. Dishonour was expressed as art-wary. This perhaps throws light on the modern difference in meaning between ‘artful’ and ‘artistic’.

The mind was described as a wealth-chamber, which in the light of the kenning mind’s worth for honour, makes it interesting that there was no Anglo-Saxon word for conscience. The Old English to describe something of the quality is given as gewitt, which can be understood as all the following: wits, senses, (right) mind, understanding, and consciousness.

At a fundamental level of the living nature of language, there would appear to be a profound link between ‘conscience’ and ‘consciousness’. As the early poetry shows, values abound like kindness, loyalty, compassion for the weak, the desire for truth and the desire to act justly. This might suggest that a conscience was implicitly understood to be more than a social construction, which might also endorse the idea that human beings can have an intrinsic sense of right and wrong, regardless of religious teachings as argued earlier. It means that the language that binds great poetry with truth, offers the author a clear reason for comparing Coates’ and Anglo-Saxon poetry.

What is also relevant here in terms of a fidelity to the meaning of words, is seen in Coates’ writing of the Runes poems. These are not propounding a belief in the supernatural but for channelling otherworldliness from his poetic spirit. He takes the symbols that were given linguistic meanings and in the dialectic between himself and the words that are alive in him, the Runes take shape. This emerges in ‘Berkana’ (Growth):

…Beyond the fields and woods
Following the melt water into the hills
Across wind sheared terraces,
Mountain’s passion, sky’s knowing
The world is in silent awe here… 

There is ineffable beauty in these lines  – ‘melt water’ for example, offering a slight pause in the line with the most syllables. It’s a unique configuration, gentle, evoking something almost primeval. The juxtaposition of ‘mountain’s passion’ with ‘sky’s knowing’ gives the reader a panoramic view and the sense of a conscious presence. This is a poem about all sorts of development, growth and realisation, and all in four words! A true poet can achieve a universe in four words.

Shakespeare (1602) often achieved similar feats. In ‘Twelfth Night’ he has an old soak, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, lament nostalgically (to anyone who will listen), with self-pity, dim-wittedness, melancholy, poor timing, and foolishness. The playwright manages to summarise precisely who he is with the character’s single line: “I was adored once, too” (Act Two, Scene Three). This is not simply conciseness; this is telling the whole truth and making each word a part of that truth.

In ‘Mannaz’, (Self – the rune also denoting humankind and awareness) he takes us somewhere just as breathtaking:

Brushing her long hair’s swirling song,
Fishes darting between stones and roots.
Brambles, blackbirds, steal through the sleeping castle,
Waiting for a suitor’s silver moon to rise erelong…

Calls the cockerel, wolves surge under beeches stirring.
A mason’s granite broken wagon rumbles,
Wades the drowned dangers in the torrent’s force.
Changes the bright course of the journey’s flowering.

Plunged the churning pool, thundered, fell, entered, gasped.
A salmon’s desperate leap, foaming rocks caressed.
A feral cat’s surrender, fern-tongue nest,
Drank sweet rapture, dawn, knew the other clasped.

The reader is immersed in the scene, so rich in imagery that the imagination is gripped, all senses alert. The description is such that it comes alive in the reader who has the opportunity to be transported to a place not personally visited, but still familiar.

Coates manages to connect meanings that are both unfamiliar and yet real. A particularly fine example can be found in ‘Age’, the last poem in the ‘Circle of Silver’ collection (1995). He shows there to be a natural affinity between courage and a smile, between wisdom and kindness, between dragons and dreams, between talk and shadows, and between few and many.

Age

In a room with tall windows, where he could see the garden,
With his books and contraptions, paintings and carvings,
Polished stones, pots and papers, maps, incense and music

And dragons and dreams and demons and incantations

I took him his plate and board
Talk cast long shadows out to the dark.

“I am strung quivering with life.
Bass strings from a hangman’s rope,
Treble from a curl at love’s neck,
Music leaps and echoes
Sound across a chasm carved by tide and torrent.”

Curled hands around his cup.
Heard before my words uttered
In his deep understanding I found new clarity.

“Age is only a little closer to eternity.
You will string your own story.”
When he smiled courage stood to attention.

“So many days and so few
Hold them in your hands.”

And pray
The silver never ends its circle

An exploration of the values inherent in the language used by both Coates and the Anglo-Saxon poets confirms the author’s decades-long intuition that words are fully alive when they are treated with respect and love. Both sets of poetry are life-affirming, overflowing with the values that may help this world to survive. Their use of language elevates the reader by telling the truth with honour, courage, love, and compassion, and enabling them to feel their worth profoundly.

Coates and the Anglo-Saxon poets create profound connections between ideas, such that the words and the ideas meld into one and are transformed with the real power of alchemy into pure gold. That is the quintessence of great poetry.

Conclusion

Coates’ poetry does not view life as ultimately definable. He does not revere any kind of deity as some of the Anglo-Saxon poets were taught to, but he deeply respects the rhythms and patterns of life to the extent that his poetry embodies them. Everything is inherent in everything else, as Coates’ friend Marcus said in response to his Art Series. (See Foreword.)

It is in this way that the reader becomes enveloped in the philosophy and purposes of true poetry. Coates’ work shows an affinity with Life itself, in a similar way to the poets writing ‘The Wanderer’ and ‘Beowulf’. The aspirational values of honour, truth and kindness seem to be neglected in modern times in favour of cleverness or innovation for the sake of it (Streetwriters, 2021). Coates does not play tricks with words but instead reveals deep respect and even love for them. It is mostly because of his valuing of language and enabling that value to be lived through his poetry, that his work achieves its value.

His writing offers an alternative vision to today’s attitudes, in the sense that now we have language as commodity, a person as commodity, a value as commodity. And because language has been used as a commodity, the rest has followed inexorably as we can see around us in the world. He shows us the most creative and fruitful possibilities of being human, encompassing the aims to live in peace and harmony with the planet and each other as vital for our very survival.

Part of the Anglo-Saxon’s oral tradition was concerned with sagas that built a sense of community and belonging. Coates’ poetry also appeals for a return to a sense of aspiration within one’s own humanity. He wants us to see over the wall of the machine in which we live, to see life as it is, rather than how we feel entitled for it to be, and thus reconcile ourselves to a simpler, less material and truthful way of life. His poetry is rooted not in the modern world, nor indeed in a nostalgia for the past, but in archetypes of truths that render them powerfully recognisable at a time when they are needed most.

Just as Anglo-Saxon poetry was imbued with idealism, so Coates’ way towards a full humanity is on one level idealistic. However, he also shows the necessity for seeing life realistically. His view of life is more pragmatic because he lives fully in the world, and not just in contemplation of it. He does not stand at a far distance and pontificate about what happens to other people! He stands both near and far, fully immersed, and able to discern what is happening.

As his poetry shows us, the answer to living well lies within. This is a tenet that the Anglo-Saxon poets also promoted, although their ways of living it out were not Coates’. Conquest over others has never been his aim. In his poetry, he presents conquest over oneself as the embodiment of a true hero. He has developed it in his poetry by becoming a ‘warrior without violence’.

In a response to the YouTube video of Christopher Hitchen’s talk about his views on religious faith (mentioned in the section on Religion and Beliefs), Coates wrote:

[His] views aren't any more aggressive than mine and he's being deliberately provocative to good effect. Where we differ is that he has learned what he can get away with by being forceful…He knows he can get people to back off and back down. My instincts are more gentle. I can turn to power but only reluctantly (Coates, 2021).

His poetry reveals his quest for development in order to become a whole person. It is all about integrity, a word which stems from the same root as wholeness.

Above all, Coates’ poetry calls us to develop qualities in ourselves that will lead to a kinder and more appreciative world as this final example exemplifies.

Mindfulness (2024)

Gravity cradles a planet in blue,
Warmed by fusion from a far distant star.
Can you say where you are ? 

Minds fickle do change; folk don’t stay the same.
Personas evolve, ideas do grow.
Who can you really know ?

Did you notice the buds breaking in spring ?
Were you aware of the change in the air ? 
Did you give time to care ?

When pain held me, timeless and helpless,
She was with me, her grip calm and strong.

Careful plans, stacks of days, all a mess.
Hours too few, but the moments were long. 

To thieves, to bullies so much was lost.
Together we remembered our gains.

To failures of judgment so great the cost.
We counted friends and knew their pains.

A chasm opened, I stood firm.
To bitter words, stayed kind.
I learned from the storm
To keep her in mind

Some have their anchors, their settled beliefs,
Their convictions, their own ways and their rights.
Disagree, they start fights.

Then how can you ever sail free? 
How can you learn anything new?
How can anyone talk to you?

I will anchor myself to a fair wind.
I will float in life’s ocean astounded, 
Open to the changing world,
Infinite, unbounded. 

Afterword:

From ‘Raido’ (Journey)

A bell
A change in rumbling rhythm,
An uncertainty in motion
The quay side sails away,
Leaving the ship at a queasy standstill…

Meanings often change in translation
I was a traveller with an ear for another language.
Since that day, when I walked to the quay side
And watched the great boat sail,
Carrying a thousand hopes to an unknown destination,
I have become an interpreter and travel on occasion.

I am far away from any familiar port
But am closer here to my own harbour. 

From, ‘A Widow’s Mite’

In truth there is no destination
Only a journey.
We may choose who we are
And the world will carry on without regard. 

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[1] Grey-hamed guldering means, Ulster-Scots’ angry shouting.