This study examines the literary complexities of the poetry Ovid wrote in Tomis, the poet’s place of exile on the Black Sea after he was banished from Rome by the emperor Augustus in A.D. 8. Exile transforms Ovid into a melancholic poet of despair who claims that his creative faculties are in terminal decline. These claims are contested in this study through close and original analysis of the literary maneuvers that contradict Ovid’s pose. The evidence thus revealed counteracts traditional scholarly antipathy to these poems.