Journal Issue
This April 1926 number of The Lyric West is best met through the writing itself. It contains 26 named pieces or sections, beginning with Resurrection by Gertrude Farwell, Symbols by Franklin N. Wood, and The Trail by Edna Davis Romig. 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 Shelley in Our House, Jo Hartman brings the issue’s modernist pressure into focus. The poem organizes description through sentence-length lines around “He meant to tune his lyre”; emphasis shifts through image, enjambment, and changes in syntactic pace, bringing ordinary experience as formally unsettled lyric material into the magazine’s field of subjects. Elsewhere, Resurrection and Symbols 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, Dawn Songs from the Uplands by Leetha Journey Probst changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Dawn by Homer G. Gane. 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 Gertrude Farwell, Franklin N. Wood, Edna Davis Romig, Sigrid Sittig, Louis Ginsberg, Ruth Aughiltree, Charles Howard Marsh, and Virginia McCormick, along with 17 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 Resurrection by Gertrude Farwell, turn next to Dawn Songs from the Uplands by Leetha Journey Probst, and finish with Dawn by Homer G. Gane. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 36 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 60 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
- Gertrude Farwell — Poet
- Franklin N. Wood — Poet
- Edna Davis Romig — Poet
- Sigrid Sittig — Poet
- Louis Ginsberg — Poet
- Ruth Aughiltree — Poet
- Charles Howard Marsh — Poet
- Virginia McCormick — Poet
- Alberta Bancroft — Poet
- Doris Lucile Bradley — Poet
- M. Rainsford Haines — Poet
- Maud Elfrid Uschold — Poet
- Leetha Journey Probst — Poet
- Ethel Brodt Wilson — Poet
- LeRoy McLeod — Poet
- I. D. Perry — Poet
- Ruth Clay Price — Poet
- Jo Hartman — Poet
- Anne Hendrickson — Poet
- Richardson Dustan — Poet
- Beulah May — Poet
- Jacques Le Clercq — Poet
- R. Marshall Terrell — Poet
- Elizabeth Painter — Poet
- Homer G. Gane — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Resurrection — Gertrude Farwell [Poem, p. 185]
- Symbols — Franklin N. Wood [Poem, p. 185]
- The Trail — Edna Davis Romig [Poem, p. 186]
- After Storm — Sigrid Sittig [Poem, p. 186]
- Spring — Sigrid Sittig [Poem, p. 187]
- Wells of Spring — Louis Ginsberg [Poem, p. 187]
- April Madness — Ruth Aughiltree [Poem, p. 188]
- To J — Charles Howard Marsh [Poem, p. 189]
- Doubting — Virginia McCormick [Poem, p. 189]
- En Tour — Alberta Bancroft [Poem, p. 190]
- You Are Flame Thro’ My Heart — Doris Lucile Bradley [Poem, p. 195]
- Telegraph Operators — M. Rainsford Haines [Poem, p. 196]
- Assignation — Maud Elfrid Uschold [Poem, p. 197]
- Dawn Songs from the Uplands — Leetha Journey Probst [Poem, p. 198]
- Dreams of Morning — Ethel Brodt Wilson [Poem, p. 199]
- The Wall — LeRoy McLeod [Poem, p. 200]
- The Night Wind — I. D. Perry [Poem, p. 201]
- Eucalyptus Leaves — Ruth Clay Price [Poem, p. 201]
- Shelley in Our House — Jo Hartman [Poem, p. 202]
- Silver Music — Anne Hendrickson [Poem, p. 203]
- Felis Domestica — Richardson Dustan [Poem, p. 204]
- Animal — Beulah May [Poem, p. 204]
- Hai-Kai — Jacques Le Clercq [Poem, p. 205]
- Moonrise — R. Marshall Terrell [Poem, p. 205]
- In Memoriam — Elizabeth Painter [Poem, p. 206]
- Dawn — Homer G. Gane [Poem, p. 206]
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. 7, April 1926. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.