It happens; you miss writers and books along the way that you would think you would not ... like reading a complete book of poetry by Sharon Olds for the first time when its her latest one, written when she is eighty, and me nearly seventy, and then having to get-up-to-speed on the "deal" of her life, which touches every poem, and then growing as a reader within the span of those pages from first labeling it a crutch that one can only play off of for so long, until recognizing it as the honest-to-goodness swinging door she must hinge her life to if she ever hopes to catch a glimpse of the world and love it.
Her writing is courageous as well as expansive, and beautiful - the way a streaming comet is, even as its orbit strains to escape what brings it round to us. Indeed, she has dealt with the defining ordeal of her young life (abuse at the hands of her mother, but also a profound understanding of her) by dealing with it throughout the long journey out into this reach her life.
But Olds, while not beyond the pull of that torment, has not let it define her as much as using it as a prism to separate out and embrace the great poignancy it reveals in love, loss, and the the gifts of this world. And she gives me a necessary strength to read the later works of poets, which is sometimes very close to the bone.