Karen Brodine

This issue of HOW(ever) is dedicated to the memory of Karen Brodine, innovative poet and revolutionary feminist, who died on October 18, 1987, of breast cancer. Brodine was a founding member, in 1973, of the Women's Caucus at San Francisco State University, which later became the community-based Women Writers Union. Brodine co-founded the Kelsey St. Press, and was a national leader of Radical Women and The Freedom Socialist Party. While she often taught college-level writing workshops in the evening, she held a regular office job as a typesetter and graphic artist, where she helped to organize a union. It was in this workplace that she composed the long poem excerpted on the following pages. The Diego Rivera reproduction, above, illustrates her belief in the practice of integrating art and politics, the compelling subtext of her new book, Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking, to be published later this year by Freedom Socialist publications. Her books of poetry include Slow Juggling (1975), Workweek (1977), and Illegal Assembly (1980).

go to "Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking"

go to Line Corrections Interview with Leola S. Typesetter: Karen B.

go to this issue's table of contents