Journal Issue
Published in March 1924, no. 11 of The Lyric West gives readers several clear ways into the magazine. It contains 39 named pieces or sections, beginning with Spring in the Park by Richard Burton, The Mist by H. G. Smith, and The Dreamer by H. G. Smith. 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.
In a Railway Station by Mary Sinton Leitch marks the issue’s most conspicuous opening toward modernist practice. The poem organizes a speaking voice through sentence-length lines around “How strangely memory serves us! Here tonight”; shifts in syntax make inward argument audible without abandoning stanza, bringing machines and accelerated travel into the magazine’s field of subjects. Martha Webster’s Gas Well Blow-Out answers it from another angle: it uses rhetorical punctuation to disturb an otherwise measured line around “They were not lost”; exclamation and question become rhythmic events. The presence of a named form such as Sonnet makes the contrast especially legible: innovation occurs beside inherited measure, not after its disappearance. In Los Angeles, modernism does not erase regional or traditional verse; it puts new pressure on both, asking poets to treat rhythm and perception as unsettled problems.
The contents page also works like a small map. Early entries establish the issue’s first set of voices; around the middle, Desert Morning by G. W. Dresbach changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Spring Sadness by Ruth E. McKee. 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 Richard Burton, H. G. Smith, Ellen Coit Elliott, Sabra Conner, John Richard Moreland, Virginia Taylor McCormick, Power Dalton, and Margaret Adelaide Wilson, along with 29 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, Little magazines, Desert, and Sea and coast—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 Spring in the Park by Richard Burton, turn next to Desert Morning by G. W. Dresbach, and finish with Spring Sadness by Ruth E. McKee. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 38 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 63 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
- Richard Burton — Poet
- H. G. Smith — Poet
- Ellen Coit Elliott — Poet
- Sabra Conner — Poet
- John Richard Moreland — Poet
- Virginia Taylor McCormick — Poet
- Power Dalton — Poet
- Margaret Adelaide Wilson — Poet
- Catherine Parmenter — Poet
- Margaret Ely Webb — Poet
- Dorothy Renick — Poet
- Lucy H. Sturges — Poet
- Alice Fay — Poet
- George Sterling — Poet
- Elizabeth D. Preston — Poet
- Grace Noll Crowell — Poet
- Constance Lindsay Skinner — Poet
- Sarah Bixby Smith — Poet
- G. W. Dresbach — Poet
- Mary Sinton Leitch — Poet
- Helene Mullins — Poet
- Hildegarde Flanner — Poet
- Mary Carolyn Davies — Poet
- Idella Purnell — Poet
- Harry Noyes Pratt — Poet
- Ellen Morrill Mills — Poet
- Charles Winship — Poet
- Mary Brent Whiteside — Poet
- Katharine Howard — Poet
- C. D. Stewart — Poet
- Elliott C. Lincoln — Poet
- Faith Baldwin — Poet
- Lucy A. Curran — Poet
- John Curtis Underwood — Poet
- Clark Ashton Smith — Poet
- Martha Webster — Poet
- Ruth E. McKee — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Spring in the Park — Richard Burton [Poem, p. 3]
- The Mist — H. G. Smith [Poem, p. 4]
- The Dreamer — H. G. Smith [Poem, p. 5]
- Tag! — Ellen Coit Elliott [Poem, p. 5]
- The Breeze — Sabra Conner [Poem, p. 5]
- “A Singing Wind Has Waked the Silent — John Richard Moreland [Poem, p. 6]
- La Petite Fiancee — Virginia Taylor McCormick [Poem, p. 6]
- It Was a Wind — Power Dalton [Poem, p. 6]
- I Kissed My Love Today — Margaret Adelaide Wilson [Poem, p. 7]
- The First Crocus — Catherine Parmenter [Poem, p. 8]
- The Woods Are Still — Margaret Ely Webb [Poem, p. 8]
- True Thomas — Dorothy Renick [Poem, p. 9]
- Cho-Cho-San — Lucy H. Sturges [Poem, p. 9]
- Voices of the Cities — Alice Fay [Poem, p. 10]
- From the Valley — George Sterling [Poem, p. 12]
- Trapped — Elizabeth D. Preston [Poem, p. 12]
- Mountain Sketches — Grace Noll Crowell [Poem, p. 13]
- Swiya’s Songs Beside Running Water — Constance Lindsay Skinner [Poem, p. 14]
- Bypath — Sarah Bixby Smith [Poem, p. 15]
- Desert Morning — G. W. Dresbach [Poem, p. 15]
- In a Railway Station — Mary Sinton Leitch [Poem, p. 16]
- Old Attic — Helene Mullins [Poem, p. 17]
- Sonnet — Hildegarde Flanner [Poem, p. 18]
- Dumb — Hildegarde Flanner [Poem, p. 18]
- The Lost Gift — Mary Carolyn Davies [Poem, p. 19]
- Repenting — Idella Purnell [Poem, p. 19]
- The Helmsman — Harry Noyes Pratt [Poem, p. 20]
- Inland — Ellen Morrill Mills [Poem, p. 21]
- Unification — Charles Winship [Poem, p. 22]
- Sea Rhythm — Mary Brent Whiteside [Poem, p. 22]
- By San Diego — Katharine Howard [Poem, p. 23]
- Now I Would Tell You the Things — C. D. Stewart [Poem, p. 23]
- Evening — Elliott C. Lincoln [Poem, p. 24]
- The Silent Singer — Faith Baldwin [Poem, p. 25]
- The Seeding — Lucy A. Curran [Poem, p. 26]
- Burros — John Curtis Underwood [Poem, p. 27]
- The Song of Aviol — Clark Ashton Smith [Poem, p. 28]
- Gas Well Blow-Out — Martha Webster [Poem, p. 28]
- Spring Sadness — Ruth E. McKee [Poem, p. 29]
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. 3, no. 11, March 1924. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.