Schneider Sonnets - Approaching 70

I'm starting something new today: I'm featuring a poem by another writer that is not plucked from another published source. The way I see it, it is ridiculous that reams of excellent poems sit in boxes or Lexar sticks, and I don't believe in waiting until some academic should stumble upon them. So I'm featuring a sonnet by Dan Schneider, and I will explain why I selected this one shortly--but first, the poem:


Approaching 70

Confetti of dawn
in the eyes of a teen boy
singularizing.

A house is empty.
The moongleam is earlier
than the waker thinks.

The window frosting
to the touch makes the pane deep
with hibernation.

The afternoon drifts
free of beginning and end
swiftly into mind.

This is the endpoint
where a stranger waves to you.

Copyright © by Dan Schneider

From what I've seen so far, Dan has written many sonnets, in many different mutations of the form. My initial interest in this poem was because of its images and lines that had an extra 'twist.' For example, I could see some writing poems with just "confetti of dawn," but without "in the eyes of a teenage boy/singularizing." Or someone might stop with "The afternoon drifts/free of beginning and end" without the "swiftly into mind." So each stanza has something to make you linger beyond just a pretty image. There is also the closing that has a sonnet 'turn' but is also compelling on its own, like the sections that precede it.

Another reason why I chose this poem is because of its structure. When I first glanced at it I thought it was just a tight free verse sonnet. Afterwards, I compared it to an inferior sonnet by another writer (perhaps I will post it later to compare), which was syllabic in organization. That other poem by the other writer had many bad breaks, among other issues. When I looked back to Dan's poem, I realized that "Approaching 70" was also syllabic in organization--and that it was a far better example of such. It has a strict 5-7-5 count for each of the three-lined stanzas, and then the 5-7 couplet. Despite the stricture, the line breaks are all excellent. I've seen a few examples of syllabic poems where the breaks aren't good, so I'm impressed that the poem satisfies the syllable count but manages to just look like a well-broken poem.

Throw in the musical effects and you have an excellent sonnet. It almost looks easy, until you remember examples of sonnets where the form is detectable, but no poem of consequence is.