Naomi B.Pascal: Nabokov's verse "ex Ponto," at the end of the Foreword to Speak, Memory, would appear to be an echo of the Roman poet Ovid, who wrote a number of poems "ex Ponto," referring to his exile at Tomis on the Black Sea (Pontus). Like Ovid, Nabokov was writing from a strange land.
 
JM: Also Pushkin wrote from exile at the Black Sea and his lines were addressed to Ovid. Pontus probably became, for Nabokov, emblematic of exile. 
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