Colin McEnroe Show: Beautiful Roadkill
Exploring the artistic and spiritual side of roadkill.
Published: Jun 14, 2011
Slideshow
"68 Walnut Tree Hill"
Photo:Courtesy: Cara DeAngelis
"Huntington Road"
Photo:Courtesy: Cara DeAngelis
"Fox"
Photo:Courtesy: Cara DeAngelis
"Dolls and Roadkill"
Photo:Courtesy: Cara DeAngelis
Pieces from Randall Nelson's controversial 2008 art exhibit.
Photo:Chion Wolf
Randall Nelson
Photo:Chion Wolf
Howard Kilpatrick
Photo:Chion Wolf
Audio Playlist
Colin McEnroe Show: Beautiful Roadkill
Web Extra: Chion's Roadkill Song (No Animals Were Harmed)
It starts with two raccoons "sprawled still as stones in the road."
"I carry them to the side and lay them in sun-shot, windblown grass in the barrow ditch." Then it's jackrabbits and a "crumpled adolescent porcupine" who "leers up almost maniacally over its blood-flecked teeth."
"I carry each one away from the tarmac and into a cover of brush or grass out of decency, I think. And worry. Who are these animals, their lights gone out. What journeys have fallen apart here?"
So begins "Apologia," Barry Lopez's haunting and famous essay about driving across the roads of America and stopping to lift and move and apologize to roadkill.
We started thinking about roadkill last week after producer Patrck Skahill saw a massacre of geese on Rt. 4 in West Hartford.
The more we looked at it, the more we saw our own studied, hardened unawareness of a giant drama.
Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
***This episode originally aired on June 14th, 2011.***
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