Woodchucks

Something about reading the poem "Woodchucks" by Maxine Kumin really made me wonder if I've got it all together inside my head. For some reason, I couldn't help finding this poem strangely hilarious even though I'm pretty sure that was not the author's intent at all. I have a feeling that a lot of the humor I found in it spawns from my love for the movie Caddy Shack, and my inability to separate the idea of gassing woodchucks with Bill Murray's character and the gophers. I think I drew this comparison because of how serious the narrator/point of perspective is about taking out these Woodchucks.

"They brought down the marigolds as a matter of course and then took over the vegetable patch nipping the broccoli shoots, beheading the carrots. The food from our mouths, I said, righteously thrilling to the feel of the .22, the bullets' neat noses." (10-14 Kumin)

Another aspect of the poem that made me make the comparison was the sheer enjoyment the narrator seems to be getting from killing off the family of woodchucks. The line "O one-two-three the murder inside me rose up hard" (22-23) seems to be a statement of enjoyment; I almost imagine the person singing it to themselves in a happy melody. Then the last line took away a bit of the humor for me, and made the poem seem a little more serious. “If only they’d all consented to die unseen gassed underground the quiet Nazi way.” (29-30) This last line of the poem struck a chord because it indicates that the woodchucks did NOT consent to being gassed, and gave them a bit more of a role as something to empathize with. Who wants to be gassed? Who wouldn’t fight for their right to live? It does not matter if you’re human or not, every living thing wants to continue living (most of the time). I really like this poem because of my own twisted humor, but also because of how the last line made me think.