Selected Translations

In September 2023, World Literature Today published five poems by Tutunakú poet Cruz Alejandra Lucas Juárez, which I co-translated with poet Whitney DeVos. You can both read the English translations and hear the Tutunakú and Spanish originals.

In the same issue, a special issue on Indigenous Literatures of the Americas, World Literature Today published my translations of poems by Irma Pineda (Binnizá) and Mikeas Sánchez (Zoque). You can both read the English translations and hear the Didxazá / Zoque and Spanish originals.

In October 2022, Irma Pineda (Binnizá) and I were awarded the John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize in Translation for three trilingual poems that we published in Poetry’s February 2022 issue. You can also read a short translator’s note I wrote about the poems.

An essay by Mikeas Sánchez that I edited (from a Q&A that I translated for her, done with faculty the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs), “Giving Voice to Words: Translation as Collective Transformation in Zoque” in World Literature Today, Fall 2021.

“Opposing Silence,” by Juana Karen Peñate (Ch’ol), co-translated with Sarah Van Arsdale, Modern Poetry in Translation: The Best of World Poetry, London, Summer 2021

Two Poems by Lindantonella Solano (Wayuu), World Literature Today, Vol 93, No 4, University of Oklahoma, Autumn 2019 (nominated for Pushcart Prize)

“Hummingbird” by Hubert Matiúwàa (Mèphàà), Diálogo, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, Spring 2019 

“Cándida,” by Irma Pineda (Binnizá), Michigan Quarterly Review, University of Michigan, Fall 2018

Four poems by José Alfredo Escobar Martínez (Isthmus Zapotec), with a Translator’s Note, CIRCUMFERENCE: Poetry in Translation, Columbia University, NY, November 2015

“God of Dreams,” “All Of Our Gods,” and “God of Lust,” by Macario Matus (Isthmus Zapotec), with a Translator’s Note, CIRCUMFERENCE: Poetry in Translation, Columbia University, January 2015

You can read a Poets.org interview with Shook and me about our translation work at LitHub, from January 2024.

And a 2020 interview about translation, mentorship, and other topics in the Rainier Writing Workshop’s journal, Soundings.

You can also listen to:

~ An interview that Karen Werner and I did with Ilan Stavans for his podcast “In Contrast,” about Radio, Zapotec Poetry, and Translation, in February 2018 (48 minutes).

~ An interview I did with Shelagh Shapiro for her “Write the Book” podcast in October 2014 (60 minutes).