
Has someone you loved ever wronged you so badly, you struggled to even decide to forgive them? In the short poem “Forgiving my Father” by Lucille Clifton, Clifton uses descriptive verbs and metaphorical adjectives to tell the story of her broken home and her journey of forgiving her father. 

The entire poem is written in all lowercase letters with little punctuation. It would seem Clifton chose to write in this style to symbolize her childlike humility and small voice. She chooses to not even capitalize her first name as the author, a choice that seems simple but speaks volumes. As for the punctuation, she only uses periods a handful of times and semicolons to casually separate her thoughts.   

Clifton starts the poem with “it is friday. we have come to the paying of the bills.” (Clifton 1-2). Normally Friday is associated with happiness and freedom, but here we see an ominous debt to be owed. Friday is also written in lowercase, which I can interpret as every Friday being so unimportant and disappointing, she does not care to capitalize it properly. She refers to a figure that we can assume is her father by the title, “all week you have stood in my dreams like a ghost” (Clifton 3-4). Her father is clearly haunting her, and a figure she is trying to forget about from the past. “but today is payday, payday old man” (Clifton 5-6), she says. Clearly there is a serious debt to paid here, and she appears unsympathetic as she refers to her father as “old man.” We are then introduced to her mother, who we presumed has passed. “my mothers hand opens in her early grave and i hold it out like a good daughter” (Clifton 6-7).  Notice how Clifton says her mothers hand is open, but Lucille herself holds it out “like a good daughter.” Her mother has passed, but she is still an advocate for her as she still suffers from her fathers indiscretions.  

As we dive into the second stanza, we get more of an idea of how she truly regards her father, “there will never be time enough daddy daddy old lecher old liar.” (Clifton 9-10). The use of “daddy” seems so innocent and wishful, but by calling him a lecher and a liar we see her true feelings towards her father of disgust and resentment. “i wish you were so rich i could take it all” (Clifton 10), she says, clearly resenting her poor upbringing and not even connected enough to her father that she would just in turn take his money blindly.  She wants to help her late mother and feels sorry for how her father treated her, and wants him to “give the lady what she was due” (Clifton 11). Her mother is definitely a source of guilt for her but in a different way than her father was, and she feels her mother is also owed for the way he treated her. On speaking about her mother and fathers relationship she says, “you gave her all you had which was nothing. you have already given her all you had.” (Clifton 14-16). This line finishes off the second stanza in an ominous way. She uses the repetition of “all you had” to show how all he had contributed was truly nothing, and that this was clearly a pattern in their grim lives. After this stanza, we still do not truly believe that Clifton has forgiving her father. 

Furthermore, she touches on her father and this idea of a looming Friday when she says “you are the pocket that was going to open and come up empty any friday” (Clifton 17-18). This pocket that is supposed to feed love and money, would come up empty every week. The idea that Friday would come every week and make everything right always ends in disappointment for Lucille, and we can assume for her late mother as well. One of my favorite lines in the poem that I feel adequately explains Lucille’s outlook on her parents is “you were each others bad bargain, not mine” (Clifton 19).  She understands that who her parents are as people and what they have done is not her fault, nor her responsibility. But this also exemplifies her struggle to forgive and move on from what her father has done. Again she diminishes her fathers authority and dignity with “daddy old pauper old prisoner, old dead man” (Clifton 20). She looks at her father as a beggar and a captive of his own ways, and he is now dead. She is left picking up the pieces of her father, which is evident when she says “what am I doing here collecting?” (Clifton 21). This is one of the only instances in which she punctuates with something other than a period or semi colon, and it makes the reader stop and savor the question. Why is this innocent little girl left to pick up the pieces? She is left asking herself the same question, but also trying to forgive her parents who she truly trusted. This is truly the volta, or turning point, in the poem where we see that Clifton may be able to accept what her father has done and forgive. The last two lines are morbid but also reflect on her closure and forgiveness of the struggle she went through, “you lie side by side in debtors boxes and no accounting will open them up” (Clifton 22-23). They are eternally together, in a grave of debt. They deprived their daughter of the emotional love and financial stability any innocent child coming into this world so deserves. When she says ‘no accounting will open them up,’ she has received closure on the matter. She knows that what has been done by her father, and consequently her mother, cannot be changed and she must move on and forgive. 

While this poem can read on the page like a tale full of sorrow, Clifton artfully displays to the reader how she struggles with her forgiveness. She uses related nouns such as bills, payday, rich, due, pocket, bargain, collecting, debtors, and accounting as one long strung out metaphor of the emotional debt and financial poverty her father put her through. These are the words that hold the poem together and really make us feel that lacking that she did growing up. Her use of lowercase letters and minimal punctuation makes you read it from her perspective as if she was a child writing a story. She repeats words like daddy, father and daughter which show the family ties and that no matter what in her eyes he will always be her only father. In conclusion, Clifton’s use of lowercase letters, minimal punctuation, repetition and strong nouns make for a piece that is resentful but in the end teaches us we can all forgive-no matter what the price. 