Progress

I'm somewhat baffled by just how long it's taken me to get close to finishing Across The River: The Complete Poems by James Wright. I've reached the final book, This Journey from 1982, after making the collection the sole focus of my reading since getting back from the UK. The strange thing is that I've enjoyed to some degree practically every poem, even the thorniest, yet my reading has lacked momentum, with the exception of the last few days. I can't work out if this lack relates to the poems themselves or some kind of change in my reading habits.

Another thing: as with other collections I've read in recent years the final poems seem more accessible and richer somehow than the early ones, as if reading in sequence grants one privileged insights, yet it would be difficult if not impossible to articulate the exact nature of the insights involved. This ease - that's what it feels like - leaves me wondering why it's taken me so long to get this far.