In "Woodchucks " Maxine Kumin uses carefully selected diction to convey a message about killing and war. Although "Woodchucks is ostensibly a light, ironic poem about a gardener's attempts to eradicate his nemesis, the woodchuck, a closer examination of its connotative language reveals the poet's more serious, underlying message--that killing is much easier when it can be accomplished impersonally, from a distance. .
Kumin's diction becomes less literal and more connotative as the narrator in "Woodchucks, " in his attempts to abolish the woodchucks from his garden, progresses from using lethal chemicals to wielding a .22 rifle. The narrator's discussion of the virtues of the chemical bomb reads almost like an advertisement on the back of a package: "The knockout bomb was featured as merciful, quick at the bone " (2-3). The detached tone of this statement reflects the relatively indifferent attitude of the narrator at this point. The narrator views the process of poisoning the woodchucks underground much like the placing of "roach motels " under the sink--easy, no fuss, and no mess to clean up when the whole process is finished.
Kumin's diction reveals that the narrator's attitude remains somewhat benign the following day, when "Next morning they turned up again, no worse / for the cyanide than we for our cigarettes / and state-store Scotch, all of us up to scratch "(7-9). The author's choice of the words "up to scratch " is ironically humorous, almost as if the gardener and the woodchucks were playing a kind of game. The game, as well as Kumin's diction, takes on warlike connotations, however, when the gardener sees the damage the woodchucks have caused in his garden. The violent terminology that the narrator uses in his description of the damage transforms the normal activities of woodchucks into acts of war: "They brought down the marigolds./ then took over the vegetable patch / nipping the broccoli shoots, beheading the carrots"" (10-12).
