The unmistakable voice of the master poet is present. Culled from old notebooks dating back as far as 1976, these never-before-published tanka show the origination and development of Sanford Goldstein, "the grand old man of tanka." Nearly ninety years old, Goldstein's career is one of the longest in English-language tanka. He has co-translated the modern Japanese tanka poets of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as numerous other works of Japanese literature. He has edited journals and anthologies, and even now, is still writing tanka poetry. As befitting an artist of his age, he has organized his unpublished works and selected those that he would like to see published. Each poem is so artless it almost seems found rather than composed, but such effortlessness is the result of long practice. Scholars of the future will examine Tanka Left Behind to understand the emergence of one of the most influential tanka poets working in English, but his fans will be delighted for the opportunity to peer into his early career.