Poet Hilary Tham Goldberg dies at 58

WASHINGTON – Hilary Tham Goldberg, a poet, painter and teacher who viewed the world from the perspective of a Chinese-Malaysian converted Jewish wife and mother in suburban America, died June 24 of metastatic lung cancer at her home in suburban Arlington, Va. She was 58.

Goldberg was born in Klang, Malaysia, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, and was educated at a convent school taught by Irish nuns. Her grandmother grumbled that she wasted too much time with her nose in a book, but a high school English teacher urged her to continue reading and to write poetry. “When we write poems,” she would observe many years later, “we pursue immortality by way of truth.” She published her first book of poems in 1969.

She was the author of nine books of poetry and a book of memoirs and poems, “Lane With No Name: Memoirs and Poems of a Malaysian-Chinese Girlhood” (1997). She also was editor in chief of Word Works Inc. and poetry editor for “Potomac Review.”

For Goldberg, who wrote under the name Hilary Tham, poetry grew out of the closely observed world around her, her daily life and deep relationships and her rich multiethnic heritage.

In a 2001 Potomac Review essay, she wrote: “I am a writer, a woman, a blend of many cultures: Chinese-Malaysian by birth, American by love of my husband and Jewish by choice. My identity is trellised on Judeo-western principles and ideals, but my roots delve deep in Chinese lore.”

Longtime readers of Goldberg’s poetry came to know Mrs. Wei, her muse and poetic alter ego. A traditional Chinese mother, the outspoken Mrs. Wei tossed out opinions on all manner of topics, whether roosters and chickens or the First Amendment, snake magic or soldiers, even Osama bin Laden (“A thief has entered the house.”). Many of Mrs. Wei’s piquant observations are collected in “The Tao of Mrs. Wei” (2003).