For over twenty-five years, NICOLAS PESQUES has been writing an homage to Juliau, the mountain he sees out his window. In PHYSIS, the fifth book of the series, he weaves philosophical reflection in and out of an encounter with the body of the mountain, the body of language, and the human body that bridges the two. Employing an exquisitely spare, precise phrasing, PHYSIS underscores the distance on which all landscape is based, searching out the ways in which humans work to make a home on earth. ABOUT THE AUTHOR NICOLAS PESQUES was born in France in 1946, and has been publishing poetry since 1971. His most recent books include Trois poemes (Three Poems) from Edition du Limon, 1995, and La face nord de Juliau un, deux, trois, and quatre (The North Face of Juliau One, Two, Three, and Four), all published by Andre Dimanche Editeur in 1988, 1997, and 2000. La face nord de Juliau cinq, from which this text is taken, is due out later this year. Pesques also writes literary and art criticism, and has published books on the work of visual artists Gilles Aillaud, Anne Deguelle, Jan Voss, and Aurelie Nemours, and on the poet Jacques Dupin. He divides his time between Paris and the Ardeche. ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR In addition to her award-winning work as a poet, COLE SWENSEN has translated numerous collections by French poets, including ISLAND OF THE DEAD by Jean Fremon, for which she received the PEN LITERARY AWARD FOR TRANSLATION in 2004. A 2006 Guggenheim Fellow, she teaches at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.