This poem was written by Clifton to represent her feelings toward her father. The poem also gives us insight to the way poor Clifton grew up and how she blames her father for this. Lucille Clifton’s poem, “forgiving my Father,” uses details, figurative language, and diction to show how poverty can affect a family.

Clifton uses negative diction to convey poor family relationships and poverty within the family especially when the speaker talks about her father. For example, Clifton uses words like take, nothing, bad, and dead. She uses these words in a negative way to describe her father to show that their relationship has not been good because he has caused the family much suffering by not being financially secure and not being a good father. Words like nothing and take show that the speakers family is poor and the speaker and her mother have to find some way to get money from their father or elsewhere, even if it means stealing. Clifton uses words like lecher, liar, pauper, and prisoner to describe her father and show her anger towards her father, thus showing their unstable family relationships. Poverty causes families to feel unstable and can cause lots tension between family members which is what the words in this poem are showing.

Throughout Clifton’s poem, she uses details to convey the families struggles with poverty and the struggle for the family to feel wholesome. One way Clifton shows this struggle is when she says, “all week you have stood in my dreams / like a ghost, asking for more time / but today is payday, payday old man” (3-5). This shows the speakers bad relationship with her father and shows her anger towards him. Also this quote shows their struggle with poverty because the speakers father doesn’t have enough money to pay the bills. In general, not being financially stable will cause families to be unstable and can cause poor family relations between parents and between parents and their own kids. Another example is when she says, “I wish I could take it all so / and give the lady what she was due” (10-11). This shows how poverty has caused the family to feel obligated to the father’s money and how he is unable to give them any money. The speaker feel her mother is obligated to the money because she feels her mother has worked harder than him and deserves the money. The quote represents the tension between the family due to not having any money. Clifton also says, “you gave her all you had / which was nothing” (14-15). Poverty again is the issue and the speaker tells us that she was angry at her father because she did not get to grow up in a financially stable environment, which was tough on her. It is normal for people to get angry at their loved ones one they are struggling to stay afloat and that is exactly what Clifton is explaining throughout the poem through the use of the speakers anger towards her father.

Clifton uses similes to compare her father and to suggest how a good daughter should act. The speaker compares her father to ghost when she says. “all week you stood in my dreams / like a ghost” (4-5). This may suggest that the speakers father is dead and she is comparing her alive father to her dead father and how neither one of them could come through to pay the bills and take care of the family. The speaker could be upset that her father died and now there is definitely no one that she can count on to take care of her and her mother, which makes her feel angry so she put blame on her father for how they are living. Also when a family loses a loved one it puts much pressure and sadness on the rest of the family to get back to that financially stable status and it could also cause the family to break apart in a way, which is what the speaker is going through. Later in the poem Clifton says, “my mother’s hand opens in her early grave / and I hold it out like a good daughter” (6-7). Clifton is using the simile to show that poverty has caused her mother take on a lot of things which may have caused her to an illness that will kill her early or she could already be dead and the speaker feels that since her mother cannot hold out her hand and ask for money that she has too. The quote shows how poverty can cause people to get in such a bad emotional state that is causes them to get sick and possibly die early.  The use of figurative language gives the reader examples of how poverty can cause many problems and can cause people to die or get sick because they cannot handle the pressure of being financially unstable. 

Through Clifton’s use of details, diction, and figurative language she shows how poverty affects families. Clifton’s use of diction has shown how poverty causes families to feel upset with each other. The uses of details gives more insight to impoverished families by showing the tensions between family members. Her use of figurative language adds a picture to what can happen to people when they are living with poverty and have to deal with the death of loved ones. Overall poverty is a tough thing to deal with and get out of and causes many struggles for families.
