Journal Issue
Published in April 1922, no. 1 of The Lyric West gives readers several clear ways into the magazine. It contains 26 named pieces or sections, beginning with Santo Domingo-Easter by Lilian White Spencer, Rose and Gardener by Claribel Weeks Avery, and For April by Saidee Gerard Ruthrauff. That opening offers a direct path through the issue, but it is not the only one. A reader can follow the printed order, pause over a familiar contributor, or start with a title that catches the eye. No special background is needed. The magazine explains itself gradually through the choices it makes and through the company each piece keeps.
Here the break with genteel lyric convention begins in Ellen Coit Elliott’s Prima Donna of the Negro Jazz Orchestra. The poem organizes a speaking voice through sentence-length lines around “I am the lemon-lily queen”; shifts in syntax make inward argument audible without abandoning stanza, bringing ordinary experience as formally unsettled lyric material into the magazine’s field of subjects. Elsewhere, Santo Domingo-Easter and Rose and Gardener keep the experimental turn in contact with the issue’s broader lyric range. Short lyrics, longer sequences, and unevenly unfolding free verse share the same contents list, making formal difference part of the issue’s reading rhythm. In this Los Angeles setting, modernism appears less as a manifesto than as a widening of permissible rhythm, image, and subject within a magazine still hospitable to rhyme.
The contents page also works like a small map. Early entries establish the issue’s first set of voices; around the middle, “At Shut of Evening Flowers” by Nancy Buckley changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Vanity by Hellen H. Holladay. The works differ in length, subject, and manner, yet their placement creates connections that a simple list of names cannot show. The pleasure comes from those changes. A short piece can clear the air after a longer one, a new voice can redirect the mood, and an unexpected title can make an earlier page look different when the reader thinks back to it.
The contributor list includes Lilian White Spencer, Claribel Weeks Avery, Saidee Gerard Ruthrauff, Grace Atherton Dennen, Harold Vinal, Harry Noyes Pratt, Jessica Nelson North, and Kate Randle Menefee, along with 14 additional contributors. Some readers will arrive looking for a particular name; others will meet these contributors here for the first time. Either approach works. The publication details add useful context: the issue was edited by Roy Towner Thompson, published by The Lyric West, and issued from Los Angeles, California. A journal is also a made object, assembled by people deciding what to print, how to order it, and which voices should share a number. Reading from beginning to end lets those choices appear naturally.
The catalog subjects—Los Angeles literary culture, American poetry, and Little magazines—are useful starting points, especially for searching, but they do not set limits on what a reader may find. For a first visit, begin with Santo Domingo-Easter by Lilian White Spencer, turn next to “At Shut of Evening Flowers” by Nancy Buckley, and finish with Vanity by Hellen H. Holladay. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 35 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 44 PDF pages. It keeps the contents in a stable, legible form and makes names and titles easier to find. A source facsimile remains part of the project’s private editorial record, but it is not included in the public upload. What appears here is the reading copy: a practical way to spend time with the issue and discover which pieces invite a return.
Contributors
- Lilian White Spencer — Poet
- Claribel Weeks Avery — Poet
- Saidee Gerard Ruthrauff — Poet
- Grace Atherton Dennen — Poet
- Harold Vinal — Poet
- Harry Noyes Pratt — Poet
- Jessica Nelson North — Poet
- Kate Randle Menefee — Poet
- Vivian Aten Long — Poet
- Lillian Sutton Pelee — Poet
- Snow Longley — Poet
- Nancy Lee Howe — Poet
- Eleanor M. Denny — Poet
- Nancy Buckley — Poet
- Portia Martin — Poet
- Esther Clark Hill — Poet
- Jack Hyatt, Jr — Poet
- Marie Emilie Gilchrist — Poet
- Helene Searcy — Poet
- Joseph Auslander — Poet
- Ellen Coit Elliott — Poet
- Hellen H. Holladay — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Santo Domingo-Easter — Lilian White Spencer [Poem, p. 3]
- Rose and Gardener — Claribel Weeks Avery [Poem, p. 4]
- For April — Saidee Gerard Ruthrauff [Poem, p. 4]
- April Magic — Grace Atherton Dennen [Poem, p. 5]
- Spring Beauty — Harold Vinal [Poem, p. 7]
- The Gardener — Harry Noyes Pratt [Poem, p. 8]
- Bulbs — Jessica Nelson North [Poem, p. 9]
- How They Grew — Kate Randle Menefee [Poem, p. 9]
- Nasturtiums — Vivian Aten Long [Poem, p. 10]
- Shirley Poppies — Lillian Sutton Pelee [Poem, p. 10]
- April Illusions — Snow Longley [Poem, p. 10]
- Blue-Bird Time — Nancy Lee Howe [Poem, p. 11]
- The Book of the White Birch — Eleanor M. Denny [Poem, p. 12]
- “At Shut of Evening Flowers” — Nancy Buckley [Poem, p. 12]
- IN THE-MOON-OF-RED-BLOOMING-LILIES — Portia Martin [Poem, p. 13]
- Aspens — Portia Martin [Poem, p. 13]
- The Fog — Esther Clark Hill [Poem, p. 14]
- The Beggar — Jack Hyatt, Jr [Poem, p. 15]
- To the Burrowing Kind — Marie Emilie Gilchrist [Poem, p. 19]
- Dawn Wind — Marie Emilie Gilchrist [Poem, p. 19]
- Personality — Helene Searcy [Poem, p. 20]
- April Dawn — Helene Searcy [Poem, p. 20]
- The Bright Blasphemy — Joseph Auslander [Poem, p. 20]
- Someday Your Beauty Will — Joseph Auslander [Poem, p. 21]
- Prima Donna of the Negro Jazz — Ellen Coit Elliott [Poem, p. 22]
- Vanity — Hellen H. Holladay [Poem, p. 23]
Rights and citation
Copyright remains with the respective authors, artists, publisher, or successors.
Copyright Status Unresolved
Rights in the individual contributions and the periodical compilation have not been fully resolved.
*The Lyric West*, vol. 2, no. 1, April 1922. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.