The Sour Tortilla

First, there was the story by Badgerdog writer Michael, from Metz Elementary. About a tortilla. Who was sour. Who just wants to enjoy his life.

And then, there was Amy Butcher’s recording of “The Sour Tortilla,” which brings to life the voice, the lightness, the hopes of Michael’s tortilla, and that place where discarded things don’t ever have to be lonely: the dumpster.

People didn’t want to eat the sour tortilla because he is sour.

Now he’s lost in the desert. A buzzard is on his trail, and he doesn’t want to get eaten, so he runs. He used to be at a restaurant. But he was rotten, so they threw him in a dump in the middle of the desert.

He doesn’t want to be eaten by the buzzard—he wants to enjoy his life by being a sour tortilla in the dump with all the other lonely, sour tortillas from the restaurant. He won’t be lonely anymore. They’ll play with the toys people have thrown out.

Michael, Metz Elementary School

Bios

Amy Butcher is a recent graduate of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and will join Colgate University this fall as the 2012–2013 Olive B. O’Connor fellow. She’s the managing editor for Defunct Magazine (Defunctmag.com) and her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Indiana Review, the Colorado Review, Brevity, and Hobart, among others.

Michael was in Ms. Heimsath’s fourth grade classroom at Metz Elementary. The entire class participated in a year-long Badgerdog workshop lead by Cara Zimmer, which lead to the publication of the students’ poems and stories in our annual print anthology for elementary writers, Rise.

Badgerdog runs workshops in schools and in the community. To learn more about us, check out our website, or to contact us about in school programs or having your young writer join our Creative Writing Summer Camp, contact Cecily Sailer at cecily.sailer (at) badgerdog.org or (512) 538-1305, ext. 102. If you are a writer or artist and would like to participate in this series of responses to Austin’s youngest authors, contact Jess Stoner at jessica.wigent (at) badgerdog.org.

The Stormtrooper's Satin

Today we continue our series of responses to Badgerdog writers’ poems and stories with “The Stormtrooper’s Satin,” by Zakary, a fourth grader at Metz Elementary. The tone of this poem, the darkness lurking, the conflict that ends in never going to the moon, is perfectly rendered in Amy Butcher’s recording.

The stormtrooper wears a satin dress and wants to be the man on the moon. He wants to know how it feels to be in space. But the problem is the government won’t let him be the man on the moon because the dress is so hideous. It’s purple and pink, and he’s kind of old (eighty-one) and wrinkly and very tall. The government tells him to take off the dress, and they’ll let him be the man on the moon. So he takes it off. But it grows back because it got so stuck to him because the dress thought he would look good in it. He gets so tired of it, he sets himself on fire. After the fire’s over, the dress finally comes off, but the stormtrooper’s dead! So there’s a funeral, and people, looking very curious, ask why he’s dead. They find out it’s because the government didn’t let him go to the moon.

Zakary, fourth grade,  Metz Elementary School

Bios

Zakary was in a Badgerdog workshop during the 2010–2011 school year at Metz Elementary.

Amy Butcher is a recent graduate of the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa and will join Colgate University this fall as the 2012–2013 Olive B. O’Connor fellow. She’s the managing editor for Defunct Magazine and her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Indiana Review, the Colorado Review, Brevity and Hobart, among others.