Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking

by Karen Brodine

Poetry. Karen Brodine's award-winning feminist poetry explores themes of work, activism, sexual identity, family, language, and the author's fight against breast cancer. Published in 1990, WOMAN SITTING AT THE MACHINE, THINKING is the posthumously published, fourth collection of poems by a breakthrough writer on feminist, lesbian and workingclass themes. Brodine's work is widely published in anthologies. This collection includes a bibliography of Brodine's writing, a preface by the renowned feminist and radical poet Meridel LeSueur, and an introduction by Asian American lesbian poet Merle Woo.

Genres: Poetry, Feminism, Lesbian, LGBT

Paperback

First published December 1, 1990

Reviews

[Lorraine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Karen Brodine is amazing. One of my very favorite poems came from this book~

The Foolish Girl

Who are you, shadow, standing
still at the edge of the road?
I'll tell you of a foolish girl.
Who swooped about in a cape.
Who tied her fingers in knots
then combed them out with her long hair.
Who rushed headlong, losing things.

With such tough knees,
she knew that time would
heel to her quick pace.
She'd defy it, put it off,
and like her grandma,
slowly age into a hawk.
She thought the weak were weak
and feared their glance
would nix her luck.

Now dusk is more dear
and the faces of her friends.
She wants to memorize their bones
their laughter ringing out,
so strong, so sure.

And she grieves
for what is gone
and tries to nurse the fear
the bruise, the scar,
the stone cold truth,
the fist, the knot
that binds the rib
pounding at her heart
let me in, let me in.

She wants to weld her self
with scarlet veins
to the rickety cart
and drive on.

[Joe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Couldn't lv this book more. // "a typesetter changes man to person / will they catch her" (17) // I've seen the title poem get pulled into a couple of anthologies as a great piece of labor poetry but it really needs to be read in full and the threads followed through the rest of the book which moves to the other overlapping spheres of Brodine's life, her activism, family, illness. Because labor is so much more than what happens on the job. And because WSatMT works powerfully as a collection. Introductions and prefaces usually make me want to puke. This is an exception. From Meridel Le Sueur's compact, raw intro: "As a poet wounded in my time...driven down into the pits." Le Sueur does seem like one of those great feminist-labor writers lost when the wave of leftist writing broke in the 40s. "she thinks about everything at once without making a mistake" / yes! / "the layers, fossils. the idea that this machine she controls / is simply layers of human workhours frozen in steel, tangled / in tiny circuits, blinking out through lights like hot, red eyes." // "All my life, the urgency to speak, the pull toward silence." CA Conrad says they fled the factory to save themselves then after years of writing found the factory on their desk. Brodine's poetics shows how to do more than describe work, she engages it, escapes it sometimes --by imagining bosses are elephants, changing the words its her job to typeset, imagining fish in darkness glowing their own light. By centering relationships and solidarities. The poems travel, interrupt themselves w/the coordinated scripts of a job: "this set of codes slips through my hands, a / loose grid of shadows with big gaps my own thoughts sneak / through." Scribe beside the text.

[l · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love her.

Survivors, door to door, driving home, the title poem

[cami · Rating 4 out of 5]

amazing