Woodchucks

Woodchucks Woodchucks Maxine Kumin’s, Woodchucks provides perspective into the mind state of those influenced by nazi warfare. What begins as a seemingly humorous cat and mouse hunt, soon develops into an insatiable lust for blood. Kumin’s descriptive language provides the reader with the insight necessary to understand to the speaker’s psychology as they are driven beyond the boundaries of pacifism. The poem does indeed have a rhyme scheme, yet doesn’t conform to conventional forms of rhyme such as A, B, A, B, etc. Rather, each stanza seems to follow the order of A, B, C, A, C, B, which may not be apparent to the reader at first, but doesn’t hinder the poem’s effectiveness. The first stanza begins with the speaker describing their failed attempt at eliminating the pests. The first attempt was described as merciful: “The knockout bomb from the Feed and Grain Exchange was featured as merciful, quick at the bone;” however, the following lines offer a bit of humor to the chase as it seems the woodchuck has outsmarted the speaker as a result of their overconfidence: “and the case we had against them was airtight, both exits shoehorned shut with puddingstone, but they had a sub-sub-basement out stanza, speaker, woodchucks, first, statement, his/her, following, being, another, yet, taken, speaker’s, provides, pleasure, one, now, next, lust, life, killer, however, he/she, day, blood, beyond, begins, been, after, takes, stage, seems, rhyme, reader, psychology, pests, pacifism