The Exiles' Gallery

Elise Partridge’s The Exiles' Gallery extends the range of her widely acclaimed earlier books, Fielder’s Choice and Chameleon Hours, praised as "first-rate" by James Pollock for their "authenticity" by Stephanie Bolster, and "brilliant precisions that reflect life's plenitude" by Rosanna Warren. This new book presents moving portraits of a gallery of characters from North America, from homeless men to a wildlife illustrator, from a mother struggling to pay the rent to a generous stove repairman. Poems that skewer the vanities and complacency of the powerful sit alongside works about loss, love, and resilience written from the author's perspective as a cancer patient. Stephen Burt has compared Partridge's "impressive poems" to Elizabeth Bishop's. With her “flawless ear” (Jacqueline Osherow) and “pitch-perfect verse” (Ken Babstock), Partridge reveals again the “unfeigned passion” and “ardent, compassionate, and unsentimental vision” that have made her books “thrilling, memorable.” (Robert Pinsky)