It’s hard to say what’s the most prominent occupation
David Shook has: poet, translator and editor in
Phoneme Media who also makes films sometimes. Growing up in Mexico, he lived together not only with Spanish and English, but also with some other old native languages. That might have been the first spark that would later become his profession. He studied endangered languages and poetry. Ever since, he has translated Roberto Bolaño’s
Infrarealist manifesto, experimental indigenous Mexican poets and oral Burundian poetry. He has also written poetry of his own–see
Our Obsidian Tongues–, and filmed a short documentary called
Kilómetro Cero. We had a talk with him and discussed his views on language, contemporary poetry and drones.