Analysis Of Woodchucks By Maxine Kumin

Maxine Kumin began publishing her first works in the second half if the 20th century. Of all her works, the narrative about human emotion and nature titled “Woodchucks” stands out among the rest. While normally writing with subtlety regarding her opinions regarding life and nature, in “Woodchucks,” Kumin makes it abundantly clear how she views all life. As a poem, “Woodchucks” clearly illustrates Maxine Kumin’s love for life and nature and her belief that all life holds the same sacredness and deserves such due respect. Maxine Kumin wrote “Woodchucks” in 1972, after she had already made a name for herself through many other published works. However, she still wrote “Woodchucks” relatively early in her literary career. Poetry Foundation,

Kumin shows disgust at the reckless actions of Shakespeare’s characters. They allowed their emotions to lead to poor decisions, ultimately resulting in the deaths of a total of five people from both house Montague and Capulet. “Woodchucks” contains a similar chain of events. The speaker allows their anger to propagate within them until it reaches a fever pitch. By allowing their emotions to take control, the speaker transitions from simply wanting to rid the yard of the rodents with the merciful knockout bomb (2-3) to wanting nothing less than to execute them as inhumanely as possible like the “hawkeye killer” (24) they had allowed themselves to become. Throughout the entirety of “Woodchucks,” Kumin shows the audience how the speaker allows their emotions to take complete control over their actions. As the blind rage continues to build up within the speaker, their actions become ever less rational and humane, culminating with their relating to Nazi ideology, “If only they’d all consented to die unseen / gassed underground the quiet Nazi way” (29-30).¬ As the “murder inside [them]” (23) makes itself evermore apparent, the speaker allows their emotions to take complete control over their thoughts and actions, leading them to desecrate the life and nature Kumin holds so

More so than her other afore mentioned poems, “Woodchucks” directly chronicles man, the speaker, as they allow their emotions to consume them, driving them to abuse nature, the woodchucks. Kumin uses “Woodchucks” to make known her beliefs: that all nature demands respect and that one must not allow evil to overcome them by allowing their emotions to take control and cause them to act vilely towards life. Regarding the most barbaric act of evil against life the Western World experienced this century, when asked in an interview conducted by Erin Rodgers of The Atlantic “Have you written anything in response to 9-11?”, Kumin replied, “You can't stop living, and you can't stop having art if you've got to go on living.” Kumin’s reply shows that she believes that no amount of evil can permanently strip the inherit sacredness from life, that no matter how much evil life endures, it will always hold on to its worth and will always be worthy of such respect. Quoting Philip Booth, Poetry Foundation notes that “The distinctive nature of Maxine Kumin’s present poems derives from the primary fact that she lives in, and writes from, a world where constant (if partial) recovery of what’s ‘lost’ is as sure as the procession of the equinoxes, or as familiar as mucking-out the horses’ daily dung.” Booth’s assertion can be viewed as confirming the afore mentioned conclusion: