Summary
In the first stanza of "Witchgrass," the speaker (the voice of the plant itself) describes something unwelcome coming into the world. This thing repeatedly calls out "disorder." In the following stanza, the speaker tells humans not to give it a name if it is such an unwelcome and hated thing. Witchgrass proceeds to ask rhetorical questions: do humans need another slur in their language, another way to blame one tribe for everything?
In the third stanza, Witchgrass states that both plants and humans are aware of the notion that if one god is worshipped, then only one enemy is needed. In the following stanza, Witchgrass claims not to be this enemy, but rather a scapegoat—an excuse to ignore what is really happening in the garden bed. The speaker calls this a little paradigm of failure.
Nearly every day, one of the flowers cultivated by the gardener dies, and the gardener can't rest until a culprit is found. The gardener attacks whatever survived due to being sturdier than the gardener's personal passion (the dead flowers).
Witchgrass points out that the gardener's personal passion is not meant to last forever in the real world. But the gardener has no reason to admit that if they can continue mourning and laying blame. According to the speaker, humans always engage in these two acts together.
The speaker claims not to need human praise in order to survive. Witchgrass was here on this earth first, before humans and their gardens, and will remain until only the sun, the moon, the sea, and the wide field are left. Once humans are extinct, Witchgrass will grow to make up the entire field.
Analysis
"Witchgrass" is told from the perspective of Panicum capillare, a species of grass commonly known as witchgrass. It is a native plant in North America, but many consider it to be a weed in gardens and landscaped areas. The first stanza of the poem reads, "Something / comes into the world unwelcome / calling disorder, disorder—" This stanza prompts the questions of what this "something" is, why it is considered "unwelcome," and by whom. The first part of the poem is a brief origin story told in generalities, and it is not until the second stanza that the descriptions get personal. The use of repetition with the word "disorder" as well as the dash builds a sense of tension. Witchgrass itself is defined as this apparent disorder.
Dashes are used to introduce a clause that explains or expands upon what precedes it. The line following the dash in the poem reads, "If you hate me so much," which thus defines the disorder of the previous stanza as the speaker itself. The speaker wonders why humans bothered to give it the name "Witchgrass" if it is such a hated plant. In a derisive tone, the speaker asks humans whether they need one more slur in their language. This refers not just to this plant's name, witchgrass, but to the word "weed" itself, which is actually a vague term because it only describes the human attitude toward the plant, not the plant itself. A weed is simply an unwanted plant, which means that any plant could be considered a weed, depending on the context. As far as the name "witchgrass" goes, the word "witch" historically has negative connotations regarding scapegoating. This will become relevant as the poem progresses.
The speaker goes on to question why humans need "another / way to blame / one tribe for everything—" in the second stanza. The word "tribe" resonates with the occurrence of colonization; both indigenous peoples and wildlife are affected. Like First Nations people, witchgrass is indigenous to the continent of North America. Both human and plant tribes are or have been targeted. The differentiation between indigenous ways of thought (as expressed by this native plant) and European ways of thought continues in the third stanza. The speaker addresses human readers in a conversational tone, saying, "as we both know, / if you worship / one god, you only need / one enemy—" The repeated use of dashes not only expands upon and goes deeper into the preceding information, but it also creates dramatic pauses. This helps establish the character of the speaker as a passionate being balancing between anger and wisdom. The stanzas build in tension until they are interrupted by a dash, and the speaker then develops what is put forth in the preceding stanza.
In the fourth stanza, Witchgrass states that it is not the enemy that humans need. The scapegoating that is occurring is "Only a ruse to ignore / what you see happening / right here in this bed." A ruse is a trick of deception. According to Witchgrass, the scapegoating prevents humans from seeing the truth of the situation. The "bed" refers to the garden bed, but the word also connotes a place of familiarity: humans are blind to a truth that exists in their most intimate spaces.
Witchgrass calls this scapegoating "a little paradigm / of failure" on the part of humans, meaning that it is a human pattern that this plant holds in contempt. The word "little" demonstrates this contempt, as does the word "precious" in the following lines: "One of your precious flowers / dies here almost every day." According to Witchgrass, gardeners can't rest until they attack the cause. As with all the poems told from the perspectives of plants in this collection, the speakers reveal profound truths about human nature. Though Witchgrass refers specifically to gardeners, the plant's observations can apply to most humans. The need for an explanation and for something on which to place blame is described as a common human instinct.
The so-called "cause" of the flowers' deaths is defined as "whatever is left, whatever / happens to be sturdier / than your personal passion—" The word "whatever" resonates with the use of the word "something" at the beginning of the poem; Glück uses vagueness purposefully. The plosive alliteration of the /p/ in "personal passion" gives the impression that Witchgrass is spitting these words in scorn. In the sixth stanza, Witchgrass states that the gardener's personal passion "was not meant / to last forever in the real world," further contributing to the sense of a human fantasy that differs from reality.
This human fantasy is the scapegoating itself: when something tragic occurs, humans need someone or something else to blame. The speaker states that humans always engage in mourning and laying blame together. This is not some idiosyncrasy imagined by Glück—this occurrence exists archetypically outside of the statement made in this poem. For example, the Stages of Grief described by psychiatrists include renditions of mourning and laying blame.
By this point in the poem, there are no more dashes. Earlier, dashes serve as signs that information will be expanded upon, but they are also indications of anger. Towards the end of the poem, the nature of the speaker's anger has changed. Witchgrass states that it doesn't need human praise to survive, the way that flowers require careful cultivation and attention. Witchgrass has been here on earth long before humans and their gardens, and will "be here when only the sun and moon / are left, and the sea, and the wide field." These lines showcase Glück's mastery: the grammatical ordering of the objects in the sentence (the sun, moon, sea, and field) are dispersed around the verb. This creates a nonlinear sense of time and space.
The final stanza of the poem is a single line: "I will constitute the field." To constitute something means to make up its whole. The tone of this line is dominant; Witchgrass is confident that it will outlast everything else. All the other plants, including the gardener's "personal passions," will be gone, as well as humans themselves, leaving Witchgrass to exist in peace.
