Prayer By Jorie Graham Summary

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The poem “Prayer”, by Jorie Graham, is about freedom through faith and the way of God. The poem is based on the central idea that faith in God will lead to a happy and successful life away from sin. The poem begins with “Over a dock railing, I watch the minnows, thousands,” and this line shows that the speaker of the poem is watching over life as God does. The author uses minnows as an extended metaphor for humans throughout the piece. The speaker looking down at the minnows and watching all that they do symbolizes God looking down on Earth. The minnows are described as “making of themselves a visual current, one that cannot freight or sway by minutest fractions the water’s downdrafts and upswirls.” The minnows create a current, which metaphorically stands for life in this piece.…show more content…
This is the force of faith.” The speaker explains that faith is the force that defeats the resistance, which is also metaphorically referred to as “boat-wakes”. The persona of the poem sees sin as the resistance, and is trying to show the audience that through faith in God they can overcome and obstacles. The line “Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is what I have saved, take this, hurry,” is he persona passing this knowledge of faith to the next generation, or to someone who needs help to escape sin. The “sand” he is giving symbolizes the knowledge and life experiences that brought him to the conclusion that faith is

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