A woman with the name of Lucille Clifton wrote the poem: Forgiving my Father, in 1987. It looks deeper into the relationship between a family and the effect poverty has on them. The narrator's attention to his father's money portrays the narrator as greedy and selfish which allowed the reader to try to figure out what the narrator is trying to understand. It is then discovered that the narrator wants to forgive her father and that today is the day that she is ready to do this. The narrator describes the relationship between the father and the narrator, and how she feels cheated by him. The use of repetition shows how the narrator wants to forgive her father, but this complicated by her ability to forgive.

In the poem, the importance of repetition plays a role, not only in just the idea of repetition itself but also in the style in which the repetition is used. The style of repetition is back to back. The words inside of the line are repeated directly one after the other. In different cases, this can mean different things. In stanza two, line nine, the narrator is giving the reader a sense of longing. When repeating a word twice, such as in this poem, it gives the reader a picture of how hard it is to understand what is going on and how hard forgiveness can be; such as, "never be time enough daddy daddy old lecher" (Clifton 330). The narrator is calling out to her father. She wants him to be there, right then, at the moment and she practically begging her father to be there. She is saying daddy daddy, come here, as in she is trying to grasp him and give everything inside of her to a man who cannot hear her. She is trying to talk to someone she knows that is not there at that time. It is hard for her, she wants to let him know that its time, she is ready, and she wants to call out to her father who she loves and tell him all of this and more. He hurt her and she just does not understand how this is all playing out, but she just wants her dad. Despite everything that has been said or done, all she needs is to talk to her father. The repetitiveness of the word daddy is just portraying the narrator as just simply wanting to forgive her father, she is calling out for him, but in reality, she knows that he dead, he is not coming back. It is much easier for her now that she knows that its time and she is doing anything in her power to let her father know that she needs him now, and wants him right next to her so she can tell him this. She has come to the realization point that it is too late for her to give her father the forgiveness she wants to share with him and does not understand how to do that. In the poem, the style of back-to-back in the use of repetition is being shown more than once. Longing was portrayed in poem throughout the use of daddy, daddy, however, in another line of this story, the line is emphasizing an important day.

Back to back style is enhancing the readers mind about the narrator just wanting to be able to grasp her mind around the step she is about to take in order to forgive her father. A word said in a very short poem, one directly after the other, must say something about the word. In this case, there is a very important day that is to come which is describe by "today is payday, payday old man" (Clifton 330). Payday is repeated as an almost reminder of what the narrator is about to go through. She is coming to payday. Payday is usually the day where people who have been working are receiving this award, which is in most cases money, for all the work they have done. In this poem, however, the narrator is repeating the use of the word payday by showing this value of payday. It is not the regular payday for this narrator, and she is not simply just letting her father know what today really is. Payday is saying that it is time; she is ready to forgive her father. She is trying to understand how it really is that day. The day that she has been waiting for, and its finally here and by the use of repeating payday she is just repeating it in her head, saying it's here, its time, she is ready to forgive her father for his wrong deeds. It is showing the complexity level of how she has to repeat what she's saying payday over again because it is hard for her to have the ability to forgive, and now that the day is here, she does not know and she is emphasizing that this is an important time. There is more than one type of repetition used throughout the poem, the word, Friday, is also repetitive.   

Friday is used for the first time in the middle of the sentence in the first stanza, and then used once again in the last stanza, end of the sentence. It is not only spread out by that, but also is synonymous to payday in both occurrences. Friday is the end of the week, it almost represents when the narrator is talking about the day, as a bad reminder. The narrator understands that Friday is in fact payday, but as mentioned earlier the payday is much different. She is reminded of all of these paydays in her past, which were memories that she would prefer to be locked away. She does not want to go back to these memories, but as she is realizing that today is payday, the day that she is willing to forgive her father, of all her trouble in her past, she is starting to realize all of those memories. "It is Friday, we have come to the paying of the bills," and usually when someone says that it is Friday, it is joyful, and all that the narrator seems to remember is the negatives things along with "come up empty any Friday" (Clifton 330). She is just putting thoughts into her head by repeating the word she is question her original ability to forgive which is payday. The narrator wants to forgive her father, but this repetition of the word Friday, which to her, is this day that all of these traumatizing situations happened in her life, is popping into her mind on this payday. Payday usually is the day Friday, so it is ironic that she is able to forgive on this day but now that she is looking back on these memories and these not so enjoyable, childhood memories are questioning her ability to forgive and forget all that has been done. 

It is said that it is much harder to be able to forgive someone when it is face to face. The narrator is realizing that it is time to forgive her father but it also the fact that he is gone. She is replaying important events in life, some that were not so good repeatedly in her mind. The poem is describing the relationship between the narrator and her father, and how the narrator wants to have a better understanding of what is going on and how she is coming up with this ability to forgive. Despite everything that has happened in the past, she now knows that it is time to forgive someone that has caused her the most pain. Lucille Clifton does an extraordinary job by portraying the poem Forgiving my Father with the use of repetition to understand that the narrator is having complications with her ability to forgive.  
