The poem Forgiving My Father By Lucille Clifton is a work that recounts the complex and bitter relationship between a daughter and her father. Parental relationships have a profound effect on a person's development and this effects every aspect of their life. Many people carry the wounds of a bad childhood. Some resolve these issues, others ignore them, while many others just never heal from the pain of the past. This poem explores a woman's journey to the realization of the negative impact that her father has had on her and her family. His dysfunction created an immense hole within her and her brother, and ultimately led to the early death of their mother.
As the poem begins the narrator seems to be looking back on her relationship with her father. It is apparent that she has many issues with him and goes on to describe her feelings. She starts out by saying "It is Friday, we have come to the paying of the bills." With these opening lines it is made abundantly clear that the narrator is holding a grudge and is demanding immediate restitution. This issue is literally described as an unpaid bill, but it actually symbolizes the emotional debt created by the lack of love, affection and material support given by the narrator's father. The narrator is done waiting and is laying it all on the line. The narrator is emotionally haunted by the father, "All week you have stood in my dreams like a ghost, asking for more time but today is payday, payday old man." This line describes her frustration with the damage her father has done. She know that he has hurt her deeply and is looking for some sort of karmic resolution. It seems like she has harbored these feelings for quite some time, but can longer hold them in. She has no choice but to confront them within herself. The father's shortcomings hurt the family as a whole. The poem goes on to say "My mother's hand opens in her early grave and I hold it out like a good daughter". The narrator is not...