Prayer (Carol Ann Duffy poem) Essay Questions

How does this poem's speaker define "prayer"?

This poem's speaker uses "prayer" to refer to any process by which an individual connects to the outside world. This process is usually auditory, expressed through the sounds of human voices, through music, or through sounds from the natural and industrial world. Furthermore, while the process of creating prayer can be intentional (as in the case of Catholic prayers or practicing music), it can also be accidental, or can arise independently of human consciousness. Meanwhile, the process of prayer, within the world of this poem, can create connections between a person and any number of outside realms—whether God, nature, or another individual. Through this broad definition, the speaker posits that prayer is important and prevalent in a secular life as well as in a religiously observant one.

What is the significance and effect of the poem's final rhyme?

The two lines of the closing couplet of prayer rhyme not only with each other, but with the poem's first and third lines. In other words, where a traditional Shakespearian sonnet would introduce a new GG rhyme at its end, Duffy here chooses to return to an AA rhyme, echoing the poem's beginning. In doing so, she prompts the reader to consider the relationship between the poem's opening statement—"Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer / utters itself"—and its enigmatic closing words. The sound-based tie between the words "prayer" and "Finisterre" implies that the quoted words with which "prayer" closes are themselves an example of a prayer "uttering itself." Thus, the echoing rhyme suggests, the end of the poem serves as a demonstrative example of the abstract statement made at its beginning.

The radio shipping forecast which comprises the final stanza seems to be an extreme outlier here, so how does Duffy manage to integrate it into the rest of the poem?

A foundation of most of the world’s largest organized religions is their ritualistic organized prayers written and designed for recitation in specific instances. Examples include call and response, Catholic litanies, and all-purpose prayers short enough to recite from memory such as the Lord’s Prayer. Obviously, such prayers are not individualized enough to receive singularly specific answers and so their purpose is often designed to achieve the effect the piano lessons bring to the lodger. The repetition of these memorized stock prayers eventually moves beyond mere familiarity to reassurance. Eventually such prayers function as a sort of self-induced hypnotic state, a contemplative consolation that makes the individual receptive to possible answers to their prayer. The repetitious quality of the shipping forecast achieves a ritualistic dimension not just through the recurrence of the same sounds, but by occupying the exact same time slots twice daily.