The Lyric West, Vol. 6, No. 2 (November 1926)

This November 1926 number of The Lyric West is best met through the writing itself. It contains 21 named pieces or sections, beginning with Out of Purple Valleys by Craig Rice, Francesca by Gertrude Farwell, and Of a Certain Contemporaneous Poet by J. Corson Miller. 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 Ethel Romig Fuller’s Voices. The poem compresses perception into short, image-bearing lines around “And death and love”; pause and white space become part of the measure, bringing ordinary experience as formally unsettled lyric material into the magazine’s field of subjects. Elsewhere, Out of Purple Valleys and Francesca 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 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, To Moselle by Orpha M. Gardner changes the view; the closing stretch reaches “When the Morning Stars Sang Together” 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 Craig Rice, Gertrude Farwell, J. Corson Miller, Ruth Clay Price, Josephine Mason Steen, Margaret Skavlan, Laura Bell Everett, and Ethel Romig Fuller, along with 13 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 Out of Purple Valleys by Craig Rice, turn next to To Moselle by Orpha M. Gardner, and finish with “When the Morning Stars Sang Together” by Homer G. Gane. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 36 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 54 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.