Legal Alien By Lucille Clifton

Poetry Analysis
Legal Alien by Pat Mora and Forgiving My Father by Lucille Clifton are poems that reflect sentimental values that connect with our society. However, a correlation and contrast exists between the two poems. On the one hand, Legal Alien is a piece of literature that describes the life of a person of hispanic descent struggling for social acceptance on a daily basis due to society’s racial perspective. With this in mind, there is a tension due to the character’s racial background that creates feelings of social exclusion that evolve throughout the poem. Additionally, Legal Alien is a poem that displays a tone of frustration and depression due to character’s lifestyle. On the other hand, Forgiving My Father portrays the main character’s

feelings towards the parents creating a sentimental tone. Equally important, the emotions created throughout the poem are due to the character’s socioeconomic status and hostile family environment leading to disputes and emotions. Taking the aforementioned facts into consideration, Legal Alien and Forgiving My Father are poems that describe two different views of life that reflect a depressive and sentimental tone that, along with the more detailed content, differentiates the two poems from other poems.
To demonstrate, Legal Alien is a poem that notably reflects Pat’s Mora lifestyle, since “Family, Mexican-American culture, and the desert are all important themes in my children's books as well as in my poetry and nonfiction for adults” (Mora). Moreover, the author demonstrates throughout the poem the life and social interaction of a Mexican-American in the U.S. By the same token, the author also describes how bilingual individuals are able to switch languages with ease:
Bi-lingual, Bi-cultural,
able to slip from “How’s life?”
To “Me’stan volviendo loca,” (1-3)
………………………………………
Sliding back and forth
Between the fringes of both worlds (17-18)
Additionally, the author describes the nature of the character’s job being able to work in a “paneled office” writing “smooth English”. Not to mention, the fact that the main character is portrayed as “inferior”, “exotic” by Americans, and even “as alien” by Mexicans – even though the character speaks both languages, which creates an emotional state of social exclusion and depression; however, the character responds to this atmosphere “by smiling”. Moreover, the poem is considered as a free verse poem due to the fact that the poem does not rhyme. In addition, the poem contains specific phrases that are characterized as metaphors, such as “ their eyes say” referring to the Mexican’s point of view towards the speaker. Another example, “ of both worlds” referring to the two languages and cultures English and Spanish. Comparatively, Legal Alien is a poem that reflects the speaker’s hidden feelings of exclusion from both cultures and her discomfort for not being accepted.
On the other hand, Forgiving My Father is a poem that, by just reading the title, may provide the impression that the poem is about sadness.

In fact, the poem demonstrates how the daughter feels towards her father due to their socioeconomic status and the connection that exists within her family. Additionally, throughout the poem the daughter portrays a certain preference for her mother over the father – characterizing the father as irresponsible and “old liar” (10) for not providing enough income. Furthermore, the daughter continuously criticizes in a negative manner: “never be time enough daddy daddy old lecher / old liar. i wish you were rich so i could take it all” (9-10). On the first stanza, the daughter recognizes that “today is payday”, expecting anxiously the father to pay the bills due to the fact that, as described by the daughter, “all week you have stood in my dreams / like a ghost, asking for more time” (3-4); must be remembered that both parents are dead at that time, given that the speaker mentions “my mother’s hand opens in her early grave” (6) and “old dead man” (20). On the second stanza, the speaker portrays the resentfulness towards her father, seeing the mother as the victim “ i wish you were rich so i could take it all / and give the lady what she was due” (10-11). However, soon after, the speaker describes how the father comes from a low-income family as well and realizes that it was not completely his

fault:
But you were the only son of a needy father,
The father of a needy son;
You gave her all you had (12-14)
Finally, on the third stanza the speaker realizes that the problem is caused by both parents; not only the father as initially assumed – “ you were each other’s bad bargain, not mine ”. Ultimately, taking the overall criteria of the situation into consideration, the daughter decides to forgive both parent due to the fact that the provided socioeconomic status is difficult to resolve:
what am i doing here collecting?
You lie side by side in debtor’s boxes
And no accounting will open them up. (21-23)
By the same token, one remarkable fact of Forgiving My Father is the particular way the poem is written. Meaning, normally poems will include capital letters at the beginning of each sentence to emphasize and distinguish different thoughts throughout the poem. However, Forgiving My Father does not include any capital letters at any moment, which may represent that the author is solely expressing a single thought. Not to mention, the poem is also structured with a rhythm of ABCAB.