The Starvation of Orphans is a poetic riddle intended to describe the concept of death, originating in The Wills of Bottling. The form guides poets during improvised performances. The poem is three tercets. Use of consonance is characteristic of the form. Every line of the poem has an initial caesura. The third line of each tercet shares the underlying meaning of the first line. The rhyme scheme of the poem is ABA.