Journal Issue
Open this March 1922 issue of The Lyric West and the contents begin making their own introductions. It contains 20 named pieces or sections, beginning with Color by Esther Yarnell, The Girl of the Loneliness by Elliott C. Lincoln, and Coastwise Hills by Dorothy Pinckney Pillsbury. 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 Montana Wives, Gwendolen Haste brings the issue’s modernist pressure into focus. The poem moves through deliberately uneven lines around “I had to laugh”; syntax and speaking rhythm take over work once assigned to a regular foot, bringing ordinary experience as formally unsettled lyric material into the magazine’s field of subjects. Elsewhere, Color and The Girl of the Loneliness 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, Telegraph Hill by Dorothy Patterson changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Point Loma by Rolla Prideaux. 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 Esther Yarnell, Elliott C. Lincoln, Dorothy Pinckney Pillsbury, Gwendolen Haste, Nora B. Cunningham, Virgil Geddes, Lew Sarett, and Babette Deutsch, along with 12 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, and War—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 Color by Esther Yarnell, turn next to Telegraph Hill by Dorothy Patterson, and finish with Point Loma by Rolla Prideaux. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 36 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 43 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
- Esther Yarnell — Poet
- Elliott C. Lincoln — Poet
- Dorothy Pinckney Pillsbury — Poet
- Gwendolen Haste — Poet
- Nora B. Cunningham — Poet
- Virgil Geddes — Poet
- Lew Sarett — Poet
- Babette Deutsch — Poet
- Edwine Behre — Poet
- Sarah Bixby Smith — Poet
- Dorothy Patterson — Poet
- Glenn Ward Dresbach — Poet
- Wheeler F. Newman — Poet
- Ben Field — Poet
- Albert Edmund Trombly — Poet
- Bernice Lesbia Kenyon — Poet
- Bernard Raymund — Poet
- Edna G. Henry — Poet
- Dorothy S. Lyndall — Poet
- Rolla Prideaux — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Color — Esther Yarnell [Poem, p. 3]
- The Girl of the Loneliness — Elliott C. Lincoln [Poem, p. 8]
- Coastwise Hills — Dorothy Pinckney Pillsbury [Poem, p. 9]
- Montana Wives — Gwendolen Haste [Poem, p. 10]
- There’s a Wide Sky — Nora B. Cunningham [Poem, p. 12]
- Valley of Slew Grass — Virgil Geddes [Poem, p. 13]
- To a Dead Pembina Warrior — Lew Sarett [Poem, p. 14]
- Chess — Babette Deutsch [Poem, p. 15]
- Sketches from the Tyrol — Edwine Behre [Poem, p. 15]
- Blowing Grasses — Sarah Bixby Smith [Poem, p. 16]
- Telegraph Hill — Dorothy Patterson [Poem, p. 16]
- Mountain Pasture — Glenn Ward Dresbach [Poem, p. 18]
- The Junk — Wheeler F. Newman [Poem, p. 19]
- The Passing of the Long Wharf at — Ben Field [Poem, p. 20]
- The Log House — Albert Edmund Trombly [Poem, p. 20]
- The Answering Heights — Bernice Lesbia Kenyon [Poem, p. 21]
- On a Holiday — Bernard Raymund [Poem, p. 22]
- Trees Walking — Edna G. Henry [Poem, p. 22]
- Eucalyptii Amygdalina — Dorothy S. Lyndall [Poem, p. 23]
- Point Loma — Rolla Prideaux [Poem, p. 24]
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. 11, March 1922. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.