Kudzu

In James Dickey's poem "Kudzu" we understand that fear and ignorance can make a situation worse than what it really is. This poem explains to the reader that kudzu is not an ordinary vine but a killer vine. Kudzu was introduced to the United States in 1876 at the centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Hollis 1 of 3). Japan imported kudzu to landscape their elaborate garden (Hollis 1 of 3). In the south kudzu can grow one foot a day during the summer and 60 feet a season if it is not controlled (Hollis 1 of 3). This weed has the military, supernatural, and communication power then anything we could have of imagined.

Kudzu has a military theme and it uses its coalition and tactics to invade everything in its site. Japan invades is the first line of the poem and the reader thinks that this poem is of WWII not of a weed.

Kudzu on trees in Atlanta, Georgia, USA Location: ...

Kudzu

English: A kudzu basket made in the Applachian Ori...

If not controlled, it covers and destroys anything in its path- buildings, fields, farm machinery, trees, power poles and hills (Hollis 1 of 3). The Georgia farmer in "Kudzu" has to battle with kudzu taking over his fields at night. Not knowing what kudzu is he is very frightened of this new invader. Like the military wearing camouflage to conceal the soldiers, kudzu camouflages snakes.

"And you cannot step upon ground:

Your leg plunges somewhere

It should not, it never should be,

Disappears, and waits to be struck

Anywhere between sole and kneecap:" (ll. 17-21)

Being afraid of the unknown makes this farmer a little bit wearier of walking through the kudzu. Also his farm animals such as the cows are dying from being bitten by the snakes.

"One by one the cows stumble in,

Drooling from a hot green froth,

And die, seeing the wood...