Qwerty Soup Poem by Margaret Kollmer

Here’s a terrific game, testing your ingenuity with words:

You have to make up a story using consecutive letters of the Qwerty keyboard.

From a Mensan comes this example:

Quiet words effect reconciciliation. Try yourself. Understand – it’s often pretty agonising. Still, don’t force, give help, just keep low. Zonal xenophobes cry very boldly, never mildly.

That’s how it all started. Then, James Clarke, in his Stoep Talk Column of the Johannesburg Daily STAR asked for contributions of similar stories; this time using consecutive letters of the alphabet…..

Alphabet Broth Competition – Doesn’t Everyone Find Greatly Humorous? I Just Keep Ladling Marvellously Nonsensical Offerings, Penning Queer Radical Stories That Unleash Very Weird Xenophobic Yelling Zones.

and an x-rated one: -)

Acquiring beautiful clothes demands excellent foresight. Grinning horribly in jewelled knickers, lovers make nooking on pillows, quaffing real Sambuca toothsomely. Unhappy virgins willingly xpose yielding zips.


Readers couldn’t get enough. Someone then started by calling for stories which start with the alphabet and then work all the way back again. Like this:


Algebra becomes confusing during examinations. Fear gets hold inducing jelly knees, leaving most normal 0-level pupils quite ragged, specifically the unknown values with x y z. Zulu youth, Xhosas with versatile unique talents, sometimes require quite powerful or non-tribal muti like kumquat juice, influencing how Galilean fears end, dispelling confusion by algebra.


Now try your own!