Yves Bonnefoy’s book of poems, Beginning and End of the Snow followed by Where the Arrow Falls, combines two meditations in which the poet’s thoughts and a landscape reflect each other. In the first, the wintry New England landscape he encountered while teaching at Williams College evokes the dance of atoms in the philosophical poem of Lucretius as well as the Christian doctrine of death and resurrection. In the second, Bonnefoy uses the luminous woods of Haute Provence as the setting for a parable of losing one’s way.    

"This outwardly slight, paperbound volume opens to reveal an uncommon abundance: a series of exquisite poems by one of the most important poets in France today deftly rendered into English by a poet known for her delicate touch; an eloquent essay by Yves Bonnefoy himself, demonstrating his skill as a literary critic as well as a poet; and a charmingly direct meditation by the translator, Emily Grosholz, about her effort to create English equivalents of two Bonnefoy poems. As if that weren’t enough, there is the further pleasure of beautiful visual art in the evocative drawings of Iranian artist Farhad Ostovani that accompany the text." - World Literature Today

"It's not easy to capture simplicity. It's a matter of meanings, tone, but also of rhythm and sounds, that are necessarily different sounds in the other language. ... This is a superb book; one reads it without the least twinge of regret for what might be lost in translation. With half a dozen watercolour landscapes by the Iranian artist Farhad Ostovani, Snow is also a pleasure to look at." - Criticism & Reference