“Often terse yet frequently direct, the poems in Exile Poems sing with a calm, declarative openness bereft of rhetorical ornament. The plain and placid veneer, however, is deceptive, for beneath it broils an emotional turbulence inferred only through the author’s prudent phrasing and strategic silences. Many moments in the collection initially seem straightforward, but they ultimately hint at as-of-yet unarticulated depths of knowledge and feeling.”