Journal Issue
Published in January 1926, no. 4 of The Lyric West gives readers several clear ways into the magazine. It contains 19 named pieces or sections, beginning with Quest by Douglass Whitehead, Sequoia by LeRoy McLeod, and Aphrodite by Anne Persov. 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.
The Orient Visits New York by Chi-Hwang Chu and Edna Worthley Underwood marks the issue’s most conspicuous opening toward modernist practice. The poem organizes a speaking voice through sentence-length lines around “Stealing leisure in the silent night I follow my feet”; shifts in syntax make inward argument audible without abandoning stanza, bringing the modern city into the magazine’s field of subjects. Elsewhere, Quest and Sequoia 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, The Orient Visits New York by Chi-Hwang Chu and Edna Worthley Underwood changes the view; the closing stretch reaches “Slow Smoke” by Lois Burton Moon. 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 Douglass Whitehead, LeRoy McLeod, Anne Persov, Helen Lockwood Coffin, Bessie Pryor Palmer, Clinton Scollard, Margaret Tod Ritter, and Ethel Romig Fuller, along with 11 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 Quest by Douglass Whitehead, turn next to The Orient Visits New York by Chi-Hwang Chu and Edna Worthley Underwood, and finish with “Slow Smoke” by Lois Burton Moon. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 36 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 48 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
- Douglass Whitehead — Poet
- LeRoy McLeod — Poet
- Anne Persov — Poet
- Helen Lockwood Coffin — Poet
- Bessie Pryor Palmer — Poet
- Clinton Scollard — Poet
- Margaret Tod Ritter — Poet
- Ethel Romig Fuller — Poet
- Sigrid Sittig — Poet
- Chi-Hwang Chu and Edna Worthley Underwood — Poet
- Lucy Hale Sturges — Poet
- Alice Harriman — Poet
- Molly Anderson Haley — Poet
- Robert Haven Schauffler — Poet
- George Maxwell — Poet
- James Lloyd Woodruff — Poet
- Helen Adele Rogers — Poet
- Harrison Giddings — Poet
- Lois Burton Moon — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Quest — Douglass Whitehead [Poem, p. 95]
- Sequoia — LeRoy McLeod [Poem, p. 96]
- Aphrodite — Anne Persov [Poem, p. 99]
- Another Sunset — Helen Lockwood Coffin [Poem, p. 100]
- Pampas-Bloom — Bessie Pryor Palmer [Poem, p. 101]
- A Day Went By — Clinton Scollard [Poem, p. 102]
- Hymn to the Rockies — Margaret Tod Ritter [Poem, p. 102]
- A Silver World, This — Ethel Romig Fuller [Poem, p. 103]
- January — Sigrid Sittig [Poem, p. 103]
- The Orient Visits New York — Chi-Hwang Chu and Edna Worthley Underwood [Poem, p. 104]
- Incantation — Lucy Hale Sturges [Poem, p. 107]
- A Stranger in Judea — Alice Harriman [Poem, p. 108]
- Plant Salvia for Me! — Molly Anderson Haley [Poem, p. 109]
- Remonstrance — Robert Haven Schauffler [Poem, p. 110]
- Misgiving — George Maxwell [Poem, p. 111]
- At The Tambourine — James Lloyd Woodruff [Poem, p. 112]
- Needlewomen — Helen Adele Rogers [Poem, p. 115]
- The Oil Field — Harrison Giddings [Poem, p. 115]
- “Slow Smoke” — Lois Burton Moon [Poem, p. 120]
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. 5, no. 4, January 1926. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.