The Pyramid of Clarity – Poem to Practice Word Choice Techniques

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The pyramid of clarity

The Pyramid of Clarity is a recently created form of short poetry. Like most short forms, the key to success is choosing your words wisely. Because of this, it’s a great option for you to practice word choice techniques.

The first verse is the key to the whole poem. All other lines exist to further support and define this one word. In other words, they clarify this word to the reader.

BRIEF HISTORY

Jerry P. Quinn, financial strategist and poet, is the architect of the Pyramid of Clarity. He built the poetry form in 2002.

SHOULD HAVE

—Three stanzas that are made up of two triplets and a final explanatory verse.

—The base of the clarity pyramid is the first line, which is a one-syllable word.

—The first line must be in uppercase.

—Each successive line increases the number of syllables by one, except the fourth line, which increases by two.

Form structure:

1 SYLLABLE

2 syllables

3 syllables

5 syllables

6 syllables

7 syllables

“8 syllables”

—There are also criteria in the construction of each line.

Remember, the first line must be a single one-syllable word and must also be capitalized. This verse has the added function of being the title of the poem. This is what you need to keep in mind when building the rest of the lines.

Line two and line three must clarify or be synonymous with the word in the first line. All lines in the second stanza must describe a life event linked to the word in the first line. The eighth and last line should be enclosed in quotation marks and better describe the first line.

That particular rule bothers me, and it would be one of the first rules I would break with my poetry contractor license. I don’t like to use quotes unless I’m, well, quoting someone or using them to show dialogue.

MIGHT HAVE or What is the poet’s choice in all this?

—You can choose to align the poem to the center or not. Many poets choose center alignment to create a visual pyramid, but it’s not a requirement.

—The use of rhyme and meter, although I wouldn’t recommend it for this short form either.

—What language is your first word in. Actually, what language is your whole poem in, but since I am an English-speaking poet, I will speak from this perspective.

NEW VARIATION 1: I love words and thought it would be interesting to take a word from another language as the first word and then use the rest of the poem to “clarify” it in English. (This could also be a good opportunity for non-native English speakers to take an English word and use the rest of the poem to “clarify” it in their native language.) Because many languages ​​use many syllables in their words. , this might be the time to take the Clarity Pyramid to the next level and create another new variation (see below).

NEW VARIATION 2: Follow the established rules, but swap the syllable count for the word count.

OF NOTE

Jerry P. Quinn has won several poetry contests and has had many of his poems published.

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