Prayer

Explore the ways in which Duffy movingly writes about prayer in this poem.

What is the form of the poem?

sonnet - a poem of fourteen lines using any of several formal rhyme schemes, in
English typically having ten syllables per line. Duffy has used sonnet because sonnet
means song to make it more like a prayer.

Definite Rhyme Scheme emulates the chanting of prayer.

Find out the definition of iambic pentameter

a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed)
syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable.

Find out the form of a Shakespearean sonnet? Is Prayer written in the same form?

Shakespeare's sonnets are composed of 14 lines, and most are divided into three
quatrains and a final, concluding couplet, rhyming abab gg.

Stanza 1

Comment on the use of the pronoun ‘we’ - universal.

Sieve of her hands - metaphor - aptness of the metaphor, sadness, “sieve” - domestic
item, to emphasise that women feel sadness and loneliness in their domestic life.

Find the definition of minims - a note having the time value of two-quarter notes or
half of a whole note, represented by a ring with a stem., soft and gentle nature of the
tree.

Comment on the use of the word ‘sudden’ - prayer can be found in regular day to day
stuff, the tree sings only when there is a wind, nature can comfort her out of nature.

What is synaesthesia

a rhetorical device that describes or associates one sense in terms of another, most
often in the form of a simile.

Stanza 2
“some day, some nights” - echo

‘although we are faithless’ - we cannot pray because we don't have any faith

Why ‘familiar’ pain - we die anyway, “truth” of the world, we are all alone when we
die

“Stand stock-still” - all around us can comfort us, alliteration “st”

Latin chanting - comparison to the sound of a train, reminds him of his youth and
Latin lessons, connotations of mass in churches

Stanza 3

“pray for us now” - “we” to “us”, sense of urgency, despair and faithless

What are the connotations of the image of a ‘lodger’ - isolation, you don't belong
there, consonance of “ll”, comfort from a beginner pianist

Midlands Town - Find out what is Midlands Town - Midlands, region of central
England, commonly subdivided into the East and the West Midlands.

Comment on the simile’ as though they named their loss’ - a sense of pain reinforced
by the simile, fear and concern in the speaker that the child might not respond to their
call.

Stanza 4

Find out information about the BBC Shipping Forecast - weather forecast to
fishermen, repeat these name “Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre”, even a shipping
forecast can sound like a prayer, comfort from random things

“Finisterre” - end of the earth, rhymes with “prayer”, in our end is the beginning
How’s the comparison appropriate.

Finisterre rhymes with prayer - Comment - what does the cyclical structure imply?