The Theory of Confusion is a dramatic poetic form intended to express grief over a chosen subject, originating in The Wavy Giant-Grouper. The rules of the form are applied by poets to produce individual poems which can be recited. The poem is a single tercet. The Theory of Confusion is always written from the perspective of the author. Use of symbolism is characteristic of the form. A form of parallelism is common throughout the poem, in that certain lines sometimes have reversed word orders. Every line of the poem has a terminal caesura. The ending of each line of the poem shares the same rhyme. The first line concerns the past. It has five feet with a syllable weight pattern of long-long (quantitative spondaic pentameter). The second line concerns current events. It has five feet with a syllable weight pattern of short-long (quantitative iambic pentameter). The third line concerns the future. It has five feet with a syllable weight pattern of long-short-short (quantitative dactylic pentameter).