"Prayer" is a sonnet written by Scottish poet Carol Ann Duffy, exploring the intersection of religion and modernity. The poem was originally published in her collection Mean Time (1993), which won the Forward Prize for Poetry and the Whitbread Poetry Award. It was republished in her 2009 Selected Poems.
"Prayer" is one of Duffy's most popular and most anthologized poems. A slightly nontraditional Shakespearian sonnet, "Prayer" delves into the tensions between faith and secularism in everyday life, describing various instances in which prayer-like experiences take place outside of religious settings. Duffy has noted that her Catholic upbringing impacts her work, stating that "prayer and poetry are very similar." She has also noted that the sonnet form is particularly resonant from a religious point of view, saying, "I write quite a lot of sonnets and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite."
The poem is written in a loose iambic pentameter, with some lines abandoning strict meter to create a conversational, casual effect. Its rhyme scheme differs somewhat from that of a typical sonnet, the poem's final couplet rhyming with its first and third lines. While the poem's form is somewhat traditional, it takes place in a recognizably contemporary United Kingdom, alluding to the nightly shipping broadcast played on U.K. radio stations.
