“They spit the body out” is a publication of Karen Brodine’s “Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking” work poems and the essay “Woman Sitting at the Machine” by Anne Boyer.
Brodine (1947–87), the feminist activist, typesetter, and poet documents her experiences as a typesetter working in a small print shop in these poems of which the first published edition (1984) have been compared to the video of her reading an earlier version on 05/11/1981, at The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University.
The difference between these two versions become visible through the transcription of the video with the typographical system that preserves spoken words, since this valuable material of the poet reading her own poems is worthy of being visible in printed matter as well.
The poems interweave descriptions of the physical processes of typesetting with dreams, memories, fragments of conversations, and other details of everyday life. They are also explicitly political poems: she describes shitty bosses, physical and mental exhaustion, and the tedium and drudgery of wage labour.
typography class guided by Phil Baber
kabk, 2023
Brodine (1947–87), the feminist activist, typesetter, and poet documents her experiences as a typesetter working in a small print shop in these poems of which the first published edition (1984) have been compared to the video of her reading an earlier version on 05/11/1981, at The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University.
The difference between these two versions become visible through the transcription of the video with the typographical system that preserves spoken words, since this valuable material of the poet reading her own poems is worthy of being visible in printed matter as well.
The poems interweave descriptions of the physical processes of typesetting with dreams, memories, fragments of conversations, and other details of everyday life. They are also explicitly political poems: she describes shitty bosses, physical and mental exhaustion, and the tedium and drudgery of wage labour.
typography class guided by Phil Baber
kabk, 2023
the project recently got featured on Another Graphic, visit here: https://anothergraphic.org/saci-gazmar/
