The Lyric West, Vol. 4, No. 1 (October 1924)

Open this October 1924 issue of The Lyric West and the contents begin making their own introductions. It contains 20 named pieces or sections, beginning with Hand in Sunlight by Hazel Hall, In the Wind by Beulah May, and To a Bride by Lilian White Spencer. 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.

Modernism enters this number through Hand in Sunlight by Hazel Hall. The poem organizes a speaking voice through sentence-length lines around “This is my hand I lift to you”; 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. William E. Scotten, Jr’s Two French Towns answers it from another angle: it compresses perception into short, image-bearing lines around “The rock of the Cathedral”; pause and white space become part of the measure. 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 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, Stratagem by Paul Tanaquil changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Three Sketches by E. Richard Shipp. 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 Hazel Hall, Beulah May, Lilian White Spencer, Ellen Coit Elliott, Elizabeth J. Coatsworth, Martha Webster Merriehew, Mirza French Mackay, and Sigrid Sittig, along with 12 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 Hand in Sunlight by Hazel Hall, turn next to Stratagem by Paul Tanaquil, and finish with Three Sketches by E. Richard Shipp. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 36 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 41 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.