Tanka Left Behind 1968: Tanka from the Notebooks of Sanford Goldstein (Volume 2)

Now ninety years old, Sanford Goldstein is the foremost tanka poet writing in English today. In Tanka Left Behind 1968, he gives us a glimpse into his early life and development as a poet. 1968 was a turbulent time when the poet’s wife was hospitalized with a serious brain disorder, his daughter was hospitalized after a bicycle accident, and his father died. Through it all, Goldstein was aware of the outside world with its protest marches and civil rights issues. The black nurses and patients at the hospital are part of the constrained intimacy of that time, each family consumed by their private griefs, yet sharing a common humanity. As may be expected for a journal written in 1968, Goldstein’s language is sometimes dated, but that too is part of the era. Now, nearly fifty years later, looking back as he writes his introduction, he gives us perspective on his literature and his life.