
 Lucille Clifton uses the repetition of phrases like, “debt,” “pay,” and “due” in “forgiving my father” to portray the weight of the burden that the speaker’s father has left on her. This interpretation is the most credible because the title of the poem itself states that the speaker has the intent to forgive, but the weight of the grudge that she is holding is taking a toll on her. The inability to forgive someone is essentially equivalent to being in debt to that person. The interpretation can also be reversed because whatever the father owes to the speaker is causing him to be in debt as well. 

The poem begins with the speaker addressing her father in a demanding tone saying, “but today is payday, payday old man” (line 5). This is the initial evidence that the father is in debt to the speaker in some way. In lines 3-4 the speaker implies that the father is rarely ever present due to the fact that she compares him to a ghost. The father may owe the speaker and her family actual monetary support. The father may simply owe the speaker and her family the actual time of day. There is no plain evidence of what the father has explicitly done to the speaker, but it is clear that it is high time for him to pay up.  

The second stanza takes a deeper dive into the speaker’s battle with forgiveness as her tone shifts from short and demanding to clear anger and resentment. When the speaker says, “there is no more time for you,” it is clear that her frustration towards her father is starting to peak (line 8). The words, “there will never be time enough daddy daddy old lecher old liar,” show that the speaker is obviously struggling against the pull of continuing to hold that grudge against her father (lines 8-9). The speaker’s emphasis on the lack of time that she has left before her father pays his dues is a key detail in interpreting the depth of her need to forgive. This is a key detail because it proves that she’s likely been holding onto this grudge for quite some time. It is reasonable to conclude that the weight of her father’s debt to her is so heavy that at any given moment her will to forgive may give out. 

Yet another example of her father’s own debt comes in lines 17-18 when she says “you are the pocket that was going to open and come up empty any Friday.” In this case it is clear that the speaker realizes that her father owes her everything. He has proved over and over that he has been incapable of giving her anything. Each time the speaker expected her father to play his role, she was let down. In turn, each let down that the speaker suffered drove her father deeper and deeper into debt in the speaker’s eyes. 

Lastly, in the last half of the final stanza, comes the true test of whether or not the speaker will free herself from the debt of having a grudge against her father. The speaker questions if forgiving her father is even worth it in line 21 when she says, “what am i doing here collecting?” This indicates that the speaker has been carrying the debt for so long that she is unable to decide if she should even forgive her father after all. There is also an indication that the speaker recognizes her father is in debt to her and possibly many others when she says, “you lie side by side in debtors’ boxes and no accounting will open them up” (lines 22-23). These lines hold many key parts in the interpretation of the true debt that is weighing the speaker down. The “accounting” is clearly referring to forgiveness. It is implying that no matter how much the speaker may try to forgive or even how much her father may have tried to achieve forgiveness, his deeds cannot be undone. 

The constant play on the theme of being in debt within this poem allows for the interpretation of the true struggle the speaker has with attempting to forgive her father. The speaker uses the majority of the poem to vent out all of those things that she has held against her father only to end up questioning why she should even bother with forgiving the unforgivable at all. The speaker and her father are essentially in debt to each other because of the cyclical connection of her inability to forgive and her father’s inability to give the speaker everything that she is due as his child.
