Analysis Of Cathy Linh Che's Go Forget Your Father

Cathy Linh Che’s “Go Forget Your Father” can be seen to revolve around one word, similar to many other poems. Although used only once throughout the poem, the word “grudges” is the focus of Che’s topic. The word is seen when Che states,”I held grudges like tiny fists of sand, / then, let go” (16-17). These two lines show how the speaker rarely holds grudges for a long period of time. The speaker further proves this by talking about a previous lover in the second section of the poem. She claims that the old lover has “become less than a feeling, / the way every lover I’ve known / no longer hurts me” which clearly shows she doesn’t care about the past (26-28). By allowing herself to forget about these “old charges” against her previous lovers,

Che writes, “Cold under this blanket, I wait / for my alarm to sing” (40-41). This creates an image of the speaker lying in her bed, still feeling remorse over the past, unable to sleep because of this. Such a statement contradicts her previous statement of not holding grudges. Furthermore, the speaker’s anger is compared to a knife using the metaphor, “I’ve polished this anger and now it’s a knife” (42). This anger is from the grudge she’s holding against her father which causes her to want to hide from her father. She wants to rid the memory of her father because she is “sick / of history dragging behind [her]” which goes back to the title of the poem, “Go Forget Your Father” (45). This shows that the speaker prefers to go back to her old morals and not hold a grudge against her father. To end the poem, Che presents the reader with another transition back to a softer tone. She wants to love her father again and let go of the grudge; to do this, the speaker and her father has to “show each other who [they] used to be” (66-67). Overall, the poem describes how the narrator of the poem is unable to get over a grudge with her father, unlike the ones with her previous lovers. The change in tone presents the reader with a clear view on how the speaker views her grudges and why the word “grudge” is so important in the