“forgiving my father” by Lucille Clifton is a text that produces varied interpretations throughout the minds of different readers. It is evident to any reader, however, that the poem raises many questions about the speaker’s upbringing that initially provide the audience with hope, but take a drastic left turn. The title of the work successfully creates an eventual irony, leading one to believe that the poem will have a hopeful tone and show signs of reconciliation between a child and her father; but, as readers transition throughout the poem, the tone, diction and detail choice combine to communicate the speaker’s reality to be much less than hopeful and actually condemning. Although the development of the poem leads the audience through several emotions starting with thoughts of happiness from the title and leading to those of heartbreak for the child throughout the poem, this transition is only the overall theme. There are several details within the poem that add to the intensity of this drastic change including the mother’s strong place in the girl’s life and the father’s role as a “ghost”. 

In day to day life, people create relationships and form bonds with people, whether those people are members of his/her family, friends met in school, or just people met along his/her journey. Some of these bonds often become so strong that people become willing to stick up for and defend those who either cannot or will not protect themselves. Sadly, sometimes children become the mothers’ protectors, even though those roles are typically the other way around. These little protectors often defend moms against kids making jokes in the school yard about her occupation or her looks. On a more serious note, some serve as a shield to the brutal hand of the father. This phenomenon is illustrated in the text, seeing as the mother of the speaker has an extremely strong presence in the young girl’s life although she is not literally present in the poem, she is only mentioned. The mother’s presence, or lack thereof in the poem, speaks volumes because it helps enforce the point that the child is now stepping up and holding her father accountable for all of his wrongdoings. Although there is no proof that this girl has had to protect her mother from physical beatings, her father’s physical and monetary absence in her life has beaten her mother down and sent her to “her early grave” (Clifton 525), but the child will no longer allow it. This child does not serve as a protector of her mother in the general sense, but as a symbolic protector who actually serves as a collector who is ready for “the paying of the bills” by her father (Clifton 525). The author constructs a strong metaphor, connecting bills that are ready to be paid to the with the consequences her father must pay for his wrong doings. The author injects this symbolism frequently throughout the text in order to add emphasis and emotion to the text. It almost appears as if the girl is begging her father to finally pay up while trying to leave her emotions out of it, but that clearly will not work. The words used are harsh, such as “old pauper old prisoner, old dead man” (Clifton 526). This showcases her anger and hatred towards her father even though she is trying to be strong and tough, for her mother’s sake. Her mother’s hardships and her father’s contribution to those hardships have lead the child to hold a hatred for her father that seems to be beyond forgiveness. This simple fact makes the poem paradoxical to the title and helps the audience see the transition from thoughts of forgiveness to everlasting hatred. 

All too often, humans have experiences that are not always full of joy, but can be traumatizing and become engraved as a memory that will never be forgotten. Some of these strike every day, halting day to day life by making people avoid certain places or people, but the memories often hit at the most vulnerable time: sleep. Dreams that bring reminders of weary and hard times often reoccur and can never be forgotten. This child’s father is constantly “in [her] dreams like a ghost” but is not present in her day to day life (Clifton 525). Watching her mother suffer throughout the years, whether the abuse was physical or came from the father’s absence, has shaped the child’s view of the father and it not only created hatred for him, but also created the disturbing dreams and mental pictures of her father she describes as a ghost. The lack of capitalization in the title and throughout the poem serve as a symbol for the father’s absence and her lack of respect for him. A ghost is defined as a supernatural being who takes the shape of someone who has died and they are typically known to haunt the living and wreak havoc. Through his absence in his child’s life, the father has become a ghost to her.

The striking contradictions between the title and the actual text show that the poem is not about how the girl is trying to forgive her father, instead it lists the reasons why she will never be able to. The girl’s relationship with her mother is the most important reason why she is unable of forgiving her father. The relationship between the mother and father, the “bad bargain” that the child did not ask for, has left this girl with a mother, worn and torn by hardship who she constantly has to look out for, and a father who has been nothing more than absent throughout her life (Clifton 526). These two points tie into the overall theme: a single sign of hope and a list of reasons why it will never come true.  
