This major new poetry collection from bestselling poet and priest Malcolm Guite features more than seventy new and previously unpublished works. At the heart of this collection is a sequence of twenty seven sonnets written in response to George Herbert�s exquisite sonnet 'Prayer', each one describing prayer in an arresting metaphor such as �the church's banquet�, �reversed thunder�, �the Milky Way�, �the bird of paradise� and �something understood�. In conversation with each of these, Malcolm�s sonnets offer profound insights into the nature of communion with God in all circumstances and conditions. Recognising that all poetry is a pursuit of prayer, After Prayer also includes forty five more widely ranging new poems, including a sonnet sequence on the seven heavens.