
The unfortunate story of a girl in a poem in need of her father’s assistance tells a sad but very common story a lot of kids have to go through. The poem is named, “Forgiving my Father,” and it was written by Lucille Clifton. This poem gives a “time’s up” image for the girl’s father because of how he has to come up with money that he isn’t able to accumulate. The girl’s mother has passed away long before due and now the daughters only option is to reach out for her dad for assistance but he Is not capable to help. Payment seems to play a major role in this poem and could be the theme of this poem. Payment relate to the reason the girl is getting more and more distant from her father. The financial terms and harsh attitude of the girl toward her father relay a larger image than their original meaning, relating to the theme but contradicting the poems own name throughout the poem. The speaker is relaying an image where these financial terms and harsh attitude by the girl follow a theme that is the opposite of what the tittle states. The author uses these financial terms not just to portray how the father owes the daughter money, but also to portray how the father owes the daughter morally and the price he’s having to pay for coming up empty handed. 

The poem written by Clifton illustrates an image that is all too common in everyday households. We get the sense that the speaker has a burden too great for her age that she is filling due to her father’s absence. Clifton writes “you were each other’s bad bargain, not mine. Daddy old pauper old prisoner,” which illustrates an example where the load is more on the daughter than it should be. The use of financial terms such as “bargain” and “pauper” relay an image that is separate from what those words actually mean. The use of bargain was to portray the image that the daughter had no say in how she got to this world and so the issues that accompanied that shouldn’t be her bargain as well, that should be left up to her parents. Also, due to this bad bargain, Clifton engages us with the question, “what am I doing here collecting?” Collecting is another financial term used here that gives us the image of someone looking to get something. In this case, collecting is used here to show how the daughter is standing there practically having to beg to collect what is owed to her. This gives a role reversal to your average family because typically, you wouldn’t see parents owing the child money very often. It is usually the child who owes the parents so its stunning the fact this girl is without her mother having to practically beg her father to provide. This gets rid of any innocence the girl possesses because she is now having to fill the shoes as an adult far before her time has come.  With this being said, the girl is not looking to forgive her father, but instead, she is reiterating all the hardship that he has caused her in order for her to feel justified in forgetting her father. 

The second occurrence of where you see a meaning from a financial term differ from its actual meaning and relay a much harsher image, as well as following the theme but differing from the title, occurs when the girl says “its payday, payday old man.” When you think of payday you think of the day some type of payment is due. In this poem, pay day alludes to a “time’s up” statement. She also exclaims in the lines before this that it is time for the paying of the bills. This is more financial terminology used to describe how there’s no more waiting around or begging for a payment, it’s payday now and whatever you owe is due. She also thinks of herself as just bills to her father because of her statement that it’s time to pay the bills, which really the bills are her and what she and her mom were owed. This also follows along with the theme of how you cannot rely on others because they won’t always meet your expectations. Her harsh attitude toward her father shows no sign of forgiveness, but instead shows more fury. She exclaims that she has to hold her mother’s hand out from the grave asking for what is owed and that hand is still coming up empty handed. The daughters hand continues to hold that mothers hand out from the grave in a welcoming fashion because her father is dead to her now and dead to the world pretty much so he needs to be where he belongs. Her father is more and more of a lost cause to her now as the days go on and his time has run out and the time for forgiving is over. The daughter gives off emotions that show she’d just rather forget. Sort of like she’d rather just have him gone and in a grave. 

My final piece of evidence relates back to my second one. Clifton explains, “You lie side by side in debtors’ boxes and no accounting will open them up.” The previous quote was made by the daughter in regards to where her father stands financially.  The father seems to be in so much debt and owes so much that he can’t pay just his daughter back, but also can’t pay back other people he’s associated with. Just like the mother who passed away at a young age and now lies in a grave, her dad is now dead as well and locked away in debtors’ boxes (a grave) and there’s no bringing him back from that just like there’s no bringing her mother back as well. Accounting is another financial term used here which is the process of keeping financial accounts. It is used in this poem in a way to represent a lock. No matter how much you turn that lock and try different combinations, that lock won’t open and her father is always going to be in that grave. No accounting will open that grave is the same as saying he’s locked in there. This relates back to the theme of where you have to rely on yourself the most because people will get let down and in this case the girl’s father let her down immensely. This is the final stage of the poem where all hope is lost and the concept of forgiving her father is gone. It’s time for her to move on from the thought of him and his unreliable habits. Time to forget. 

You can only take so much until it’s time to say enough. That’s what the daughter in the poem “Forgiving my Father” did. She finally said times up and that he needed to give what was owed but he of course let her down. The daughter did not expect anything less though. The daughter knew the whole time that her father would come up empty handed and that is why she held her mother’s hand out from the grave with welcoming arms once it was finally payday. She explains how he is the pocket that always comes up empty, so it’s no surprise to her that he’s actually come up empty. The effect these financial words have on the poem is enormous. They completely alter how you could interpret the text and once you’ve understood the different interpretation to the text the poem will have more of an impact on you and a better image can get painted in your head. These financial terms help us understand that she is just trying to forget all the grief from her father rather than forgive him. The examples I have chosen follow this theme because the girl is showing her frustration toward her father because time and time again while she relies on him and asks him to pay up but he just can’t. In no way here she is forgiving her father as the tittle states. It seems as if she is releasing her emotions and speaking her mind. Her mind is leaning not more with forgiving it seems like, but more with forgetting. The girl in this poem gradually felt worse and worse about her father as the poem went on which is ironic because the title, “Forgiving my Father,” would make you think as the poem went on she’d start to be more forgiving towards him. Since the poem takes a backward direction and the daughter starts to feel worse and worse about her father, the name of the poem should be switched to “Forgetting my Father.” This new name would allow the reader to understand that the actions this father has taken isn’t going to earn him a second chance from his daughter. These actions have caused his relationship with his daughter to plummet and is her eyes he’s dead now. Maybe not dead in the world, but dead to his daughter.        

 