Knock Knock

The speaker states explicitly that, in his father’s absence, he has had to rely on becoming his own father and teaching himself the lessons his father could not. He imagines telling his father: “I’m forgetting who you are” (Line 40), so I write this to “try to heal / And try to father myself” (Lines 42-43). The last part of the poem expresses the results of the speaker’s self-fathering. The advice he imagines his father giving him is really the speaker’s own independently acquired knowledge. It ranges from the mundane (shaving) to essential (fighting racism and poverty), but it conveys one pervading quality: confidence. Whether it is shaving “in strong deliberate strokes” (Line 48), believing in the “brilliance of your ballpoint pen” (Line 49), or walking “like a god” (Line 50) to attract an equally confident woman, “your goddess” (Line 50), all this behavior entails overcoming insecurity and self-doubt.

The speaker has learned that this faith in himself is essential, not only for being powerful as a man and a writer, but also for making a difference beyond his individual life: fighting against “racism and poverty” (Line 53) that blighted the lives of his father and many other Black Americans for generations. He has also understood that his father made choices that led to his incarceration and that he must have the strength not to repeat his father’s mistakes. He imagines his father telling him: “The best of me still lives in you / […] but you are not my choices” (Lines 59-60). The history will not repeat itself because the son’s self-fathering developed in him an awareness of what his father did wrong and a determination not to follow his example in that regard. Instead, the speaker commits to using his knowledge and confidence “to change this world” (Line 65), together with many others who wish to honor their fathers by embracing their qualities but overcoming their shortcomings.