
“forgiving my father” written by Lucille Clifton follows her trademark style of being simple and direct. While it may seem bland at first glance, reoccurring errors bring up a plethora of interesting thoughts of what really developed in the duration of this poem. Clifton’s poem formatting choices allow us to peek into the relationship shared by Clifton with her father; her choice of symbolism exhibits her emotion along his lack of support and what she means when she says, “forgiving my father”. 

Clifton is addressing her father throughout the poem. The words are directed towards him and it is clear that these words are not very kind. One of Clifton’s angriest responses towards her father is, “but you were the son of a needy father, / the father of a needy son; / you gave her all you had / which was nothing (525)”. Clifton has taken a very obvious stance here and is opposing her father. Her anger is on full display and one interesting thing Clifton has done in her poem is to choose to neglect using any capital letters. Using all lower case letters is a style done by some authors in order to avoid losing meaning in their writing as they try to avoid overusing capitalizing (ETF Guide for Authors). Using lowercase letters emphasizes her writing and gives it a melancholic feel (TV Tropes).  Clifton is using this style of writing in a symbolic way to express anger and remorse towards her father. Taking such efforts to keep all meaning in her writing shows how much of an impact her father did have on her. Clifton broke the norm, used a simple change in order to produce similar feelings to how she felt which allows the reader to form more of a connection to her and gain better understanding of her feelings.

 Her father’s financial bearing is not shied from in Clifton’s poem and is another tool she uses to express a loss of hope. Clifton goes as far as saying, “you are the pocket that was going to open / and come up empty any friday (526)”. This provides insight that he did not support Clifton, or her mom in the way that she believed he should have. This is the root of her problems with her father. Her father never had the money to pay what he needed to pay, whenever it was needed for him to pay, he had nothing. Being around this sort of incompetent behavior frustrates Clifton as she states, “i wish you were rich so i could take it all / and give the lady what she was due (525)”. Still following the same style of lack of capitalization, which she has used as a sign of lost hope (TV Tropes). In her father’s case she has made it a moral issue by using his financial problems and symbolizing them (Forgiving My Father). Clifton held her father to moral, social obligations, used his finances to express his failure in both, towards her and her mom (Forgiving My Father). Through the use of symbolism Clifton has shared her father’s shortcomings with finances and then from including her mother proves to the reader that they also extended into his family life. This shows the lack of support that he provided his wife and daughter.

Clifton’s writing is simple, direct, but so is her symbolism and she uses the bank/bank terminology within her poem as a strong symbol. The bank is a symbolic image that highlights a major problem of her father. It is efficient in its message that her father cannot repay his debts. Clifton has expressed herself and feels that her father has owed her a debt that he can no longer himself repay (Forgiving My Father). In her poem she compares her father to a ghost, this is symbolism to show that he has passed away and towards the end of the poem she uses the word choice, “you lie side by side in debtor’s boxes (526)”. Her symbolism involving a debtor’s box and that he lay beside it is used to show that his debt went to the grave with him. Being dead he has been unable to repay his debts and Clifton has taken it upon herself to pay them for him through the use of her poem (Forgiving My Father). This is where her forgiveness comes in, in order to pay some of his debt for him she must forgive him. She felt that he owed her, she came to collect but she had to pay for him and that payment was her making herself forgive. 

Clifton’s title makes sense after understanding her symbolism and her financial references. “forgiving my father” is what she titled her poem and while she never once says she does there is clarity at the end. Clifton has stated that she comes to collect from her father and calls herself a good daughter. She ends her poem with, “What am I doing her collecting? / you lie side by side in debtors' boxes / and no accounting will open them up” (526). Her referring to herself as a good daughter, with collecting for something her father no longer can pay is symbolism that she herself will be the good daughter and pay it for him. What she felt her father owed she will pay off with her own forgiveness of him so that she may move on. Her ending of him being buried resembles that of burying the hatchet another symbolic maneuver done by Clifton that shows through her own payment she can move on. Clifton is able to finally forgive her father. 

Clifton’s choices of formatting and symbolism provide us with information needed to help us see her relationship with her father. Clifton has paid off her father’s debt despite his moral and social failings of her and her mother. She has gone on to a public stage to share and express herself. In the end she has taken upon herself the responsibility to pay what her father could not. The poem delivers that through herself she was able to come to forgiveness for her father. 
