Journal Issue
This February 1922 number of The Lyric West is best met through the writing itself. It contains 32 named pieces or sections, beginning with Isolde by Joseph Andrew Galahad, Guests by Mary Brent Whiteside, and Awakened Love by Dorothea Myrto Childs. 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 number’s sharpest formal turn belongs to Rolfe Humphries’s February. The poem compresses perception into short, image-bearing lines around “with a sudden flurry of rain”; pause and white space become part of the measure, bringing ordinary experience as formally unsettled lyric material into the magazine’s field of subjects. Weare Holbrook’s The Drifter’s Wife answers it from another angle: it organizes a speaking voice through sentence-length lines around “Move on, Charlie Davis! Don’t talk to me so”; shifts in syntax make inward argument audible without abandoning stanza. 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, Astral Stones by Neal Gallatin changes the view; the closing stretch reaches California, Sweet Homeland of Mine by Mary Lennox. 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 Joseph Andrew Galahad, Mary Brent Whiteside, Dorothea Myrto Childs, Hortense Flexner, Sada Cowan, Clark Ashton Smith, Mary Meisinger, and George F. Forster, along with 21 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, California, and Love—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 Isolde by Joseph Andrew Galahad, turn next to Astral Stones by Neal Gallatin, and finish with California, Sweet Homeland of Mine by Mary Lennox. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 38 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 69 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
- Joseph Andrew Galahad — Poet
- Mary Brent Whiteside — Poet
- Dorothea Myrto Childs — Poet
- Hortense Flexner — Poet
- Sada Cowan — Poet
- Clark Ashton Smith — Poet
- Mary Meisinger — Poet
- George F. Forster — Poet
- Wright Field — Poet
- Kate Blackman — Poet
- Bernardine Algert — Poet
- Margery Swett — Poet
- Floyd Meredith — Poet
- William Foster Elliot — Poet
- Neal Gallatin — Poet
- George Stirling — Poet
- Torrey Connor — Poet
- Helen Frazee-Bower — Poet
- Lillian White Spencer — Poet
- W. H. Lench — Poet
- Dorothy Page — Poet
- Arthur W. Atkinson — Poet
- Rolfe Humphries — Poet
- Weare Holbrook — Poet
- Joy Bennett — Poet
- Nora B. Cunningham — Poet
- Ames Peterson — Poet
- Nancy Ellen White — Poet
- Mary Lennox — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Isolde — Joseph Andrew Galahad [Poem, p. 3]
- Guests — Mary Brent Whiteside [Poem, p. 4]
- Awakened Love — Dorothea Myrto Childs [Poem, p. 4]
- Prophecy — Hortense Flexner [Poem, p. 5]
- An Egyptian Love Song — Sada Cowan [Poem, p. 5]
- Haunting — Clark Ashton Smith [Poem, p. 6]
- Fantasy — Mary Meisinger [Poem, p. 6]
- An Indian Lover Sings — George F. Forster [Poem, p. 7]
- Flower-o’-the-Wind — Wright Field [Poem, p. 8]
- Song of the Reeds — Kate Blackman [Poem, p. 8]
- Song of a Ballerina — Bernardine Algert [Poem, p. 9]
- Complaint of a Vagabond — Bernardine Algert [Poem, p. 9]
- A Singer Says Good-Bye — Margery Swett [Poem, p. 10]
- Impermanence — Floyd Meredith [Poem, p. 12]
- Defeat — William Foster Elliot [Poem, p. 13]
- To Eleanor from the City — William Foster Elliot [Poem, p. 13]
- Astral Stones — Neal Gallatin [Poem, p. 14]
- Problem — George Stirling [Poem, p. 16]
- Twilight at Dolores — Torrey Connor [Poem, p. 16]
- Night Silence — Helen Frazee-Bower [Poem, p. 17]
- San Miguel Tlaxcaltecos — Lillian White Spencer [Poem, p. 17]
- Desire — W. H. Lench [Poem, p. 18]
- Whimsy — Dorothy Page [Poem, p. 18]
- To the Northern Lights — Arthur W. Atkinson [Poem, p. 19]
- February — Rolfe Humphries [Poem, p. 19]
- The Drifter’s Wife — Weare Holbrook [Poem, p. 20]
- Thoughts — Joy Bennett [Poem, p. 21]
- To You — Joy Bennett [Poem, p. 21]
- The Captive — Nora B. Cunningham [Poem, p. 22]
- Old Gardens — Ames Peterson [Poem, p. 22]
- World Wonder — Nancy Ellen White [Poem, p. 23]
- California, Sweet Homeland of Mine — Mary Lennox [Poem]
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. 1, no. 10, February 1922. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.