The poem entitled “forgiving my father” is far from actually being forgiving. The daughter’s feelings echo throughout the poem as she describes them and exposes her emotions for her father. The author Lucille Clifton uses poetic devices and an arrangement of words to describe the text. The repetition of words and the double meanings of words heighten the daughter’s hostility.  The poem’s play on words allows the daughter to be very expressive. It demonstrates the emotional turmoil between the daughter and the father. She describes her disgust for him in line 9 and line 20 as well as line 21, the sadness was evident.  The feelings of pain and scorn are portrayed through the words that are used by the daughter; this is important because it shows an image of a deadbeat father that is etched in the reader’s mind through the author’s various connotations.

Certain words have the ability to grab the reader’s attention in “forgiving my father”. One word in particular was “lecher”. Lecher is an interesting word used by the daughter to describe her dad in line 9. A lecher is someone who allows sex to control them or seen as a womanizer. The term is also interchangeable when describing a pervert. The daughter expresses her disdain for her father but using the word lecher seems to show more of disgust than anger. It allows the for the theme of pain to be expressed because it shows the hurt that she is expressing to be seen. The father’s adulterous affairs with other women kept him away from the family which explains the hurt.  

The word “old” is another word that is used uniquely. “Old” which is normally used to describe lack of youth or age is used to describe the father as well. The daughter says “…daddy daddy old lecher old liar”(Clifton 9-10). The daughter uses the word “old” to describe her father. The word is used negatively and describes the father undesirably. “Old” suggest that the father has done these things before. It isn’t new to the daughter that he is a womanizer and doesn’t tell the truth. The daughter is accustomed to this behavior from him. The daughter uses the word “old” to show her contempt and hostility towards her father. These words effect the reader’s opinions regarding the father. The reader empathizes with the daughter because it not only shows the father as a deadbeat but as unfaithful to his family.

The word “old” is also used in a nontraditional way as well. The daughter shows her lack of appreciation for her father. The daughter also shows that she has a shortage of patience with her father. The daughter says, “there will never be time enough daddy daddy old lecher old liar”(Clifton 8-10). I find it interesting that she stated this and her father died as if time ran out. The dismissive and critical connotation that is used by the daughter towards her father demonstrates her unfavorable attitude. This helps the theme of scorn to be displayed.  

The word selection conveys the emotional warfare that the daughter displays throughout the poem. The message that Clifton exposes in the poem is one that shows a daughter’s difficulty to forgive. The hurt, pain, disappointment and insolence that she feels makes it hard to let go but yet she still has some mixed emotions. The daughter speaks of her father visiting her dreams. This is an indication that she does think about him but she still feels that he owes her.  She feels that she is justified in her way of thinking because of his behavior when he was alive. The payday and needing more time pertains to the father wanting to live. She says, “all week you have stood in my dreams like a ghost, but today is payday, payday old man”(Clifton 3-5) She uses this time to gloat because he finally has to pay.  

In the poem, “forgiving my father” the arrangement of some of the words are inverted. For example, “but you were the only son of a needy father, the father of a needy son”(Clifton 12). The word son refers to the father being a son and also to the father’s child. The lines from the following offers some explanation of the father’s parenting or lack of parenting. He’s a product of his own environment. He patterned his father skills after what he was taught. The son of a poor man becomes the poor father financially as well as morally.

Lucille Clifton’s poem, “forgiving my father” carries a lot of deep emotions from a daughter about her father. The poetic devices that are used such as repetition allows the author to reiterate the emotions and feelings that are being expressed in the poem. The words in the poem are also used to convey the message of pain and scorn in the text.  The daughter’s tug of war with her emotions are displayed in the poem as well. She wants to hate him but she can’t shake the pain of being disappointed. She gives off the feeling to reader’s that she loves him but wishes that she never would have.  The insults and disrespect that is hurled in the poem shows the pain that the father distributed in the daughter’s life. The daughter’s continuous scorn and pain is a consistent message that is shown throughout the text. The negative connotations are used as defense mechanisms to unanswered questions from a daughter that believes that the payday is payback. It is sad to see that a daughter has to have such negative feelings towards who should have been the most important man in her life.
