Journal Issue
This October 1927 number of The Lyric West is best met through the writing itself. It contains 28 named pieces or sections, beginning with Mother Autumn by Mary Carolyn Davies, Kind David Lay Dying by Mary J. Elmendorf, and Treasure by Harriet Caie. 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 Richard Shelley’s A Warrior Returns Home. The poem organizes a speaking voice through sentence-length lines around “But I do not knock”; shifts in syntax make inward argument audible without abandoning stanza, bringing the modern city into the magazine’s field of subjects. Elsewhere, Mother Autumn and Kind David Lay Dying 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, Man to Woman by Lucia Trent changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Sin by Henry Ramsay. 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 Mary Carolyn Davies, Mary J. Elmendorf, Harriet Caie, Beulah May, Maud E. Uschold, J. Corson Miller, Whitley Gray, and M. Kraft, along with 20 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, War, and Death and elegy—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 Mother Autumn by Mary Carolyn Davies, turn next to Man to Woman by Lucia Trent, and finish with Sin by Henry Ramsay. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 36 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 52 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
- Mary Carolyn Davies — Poet
- Mary J. Elmendorf — Poet
- Harriet Caie — Poet
- Beulah May — Poet
- Maud E. Uschold — Poet
- J. Corson Miller — Poet
- Whitley Gray — Poet
- M. Kraft — Poet
- John Russell McCarthy — Poet
- Eugene Surmelian — Poet
- Helen Rhoda Hoopes — Poet
- William van Wyck — Poet
- Samuel M. Sargent — Poet
- Jo Hartman — Poet
- Lucia Trent — Poet
- Mazie V. Caruthers — Poet
- Ethel Crum — Poet
- Porter Myron Chaffee — Poet
- Daisy E. B. Parrent — Poet
- Katharine Allison MacLean — Poet
- Harold Wesley Melvin — Poet
- Richard Shelley — Poet
- Lillah A. Ashley — Poet
- Isaac Benjamin — Poet
- Rachel Marshall Terrell — Poet
- Alberta Bancroft — Poet
- Amy Houck — Poet
- Henry Ramsay — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Mother Autumn — Mary Carolyn Davies [Poem, p. 1]
- Kind David Lay Dying — Mary J. Elmendorf [Poem, p. 2]
- Treasure — Harriet Caie [Poem, p. 4]
- A Dance by Ruth St. Denis — Beulah May [Poem, p. 5]
- Lacquer Twilight — Maud E. Uschold [Poem, p. 5]
- Wild Honey — J. Corson Miller [Poem, p. 6]
- Safarai — Whitley Gray [Poem, p. 6]
- The Mole — M. Kraft [Poem, p. 7]
- Conversation — John Russell McCarthy [Poem, p. 8]
- Wheat Fields in Kansas — Eugene Surmelian [Poem, p. 9]
- Milton’s Daughters — Helen Rhoda Hoopes [Poem, p. 10]
- Zola — William van Wyck [Poem, p. 11]
- Glimpses — Samuel M. Sargent [Poem, p. 12]
- A Fisher Phaon — Jo Hartman [Poem, p. 13]
- Man to Woman — Lucia Trent [Poem, p. 13]
- Marching Rocks — Mazie V. Caruthers [Poem, p. 14]
- Yosemite — Ethel Crum [Poem, p. 14]
- Death Thoughts of a Pantheist — Porter Myron Chaffee [Poem, p. 15]
- Autumn — Daisy E. B. Parrent [Poem, p. 15]
- Lilith Laments — Katharine Allison MacLean [Poem, p. 16]
- To a Weaver of Words — Harold Wesley Melvin [Poem, p. 17]
- A Warrior Returns Home — Richard Shelley [Poem, p. 18]
- Chopin — Lillah A. Ashley [Poem, p. 19]
- Old Violin — Isaac Benjamin [Poem, p. 19]
- Three Trees — Rachel Marshall Terrell [Poem, p. 20]
- Prayer — Alberta Bancroft [Poem, p. 21]
- Silver Sewing — Amy Houck [Poem, p. 22]
- Sin — Henry Ramsay [Poem, p. 22]
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. 7, no. 1, October 1927. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.