Journal Issue
The March 1923 issue of The Lyric West brings its writers together without asking them to sound alike. It contains 35 named pieces or sections, beginning with Spring Storm by Dorothy E. Collins, Lake Coeur d’Alene by Mary Carolyn Davies, and “Donna, Mona, Doris, Dolf, Sybil, by Mary Carolyn Davies. 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 Hazel Hall’s Pursuit. The poem builds by refrain and recurrence around “She knows someone is following her”; repetition carries the poem’s turn rather than merely decorating it, bringing the modern city into the magazine’s field of subjects. Bertha McE. Knipe’s The Almond Blossoms answers it from another angle: it organizes description through sentence-length lines around “The almond tree is in flower”; emphasis shifts through image, enjambment, and changes in syntactic pace. Short lyrics, longer sequences, and unevenly unfolding free verse share the same contents list, making formal difference part of the issue’s reading rhythm. The issue catches Los Angeles poetry culture in transition: polished song remains public currency, but modernist compression and contemporary speech have begun to alter what a lyric can hold.
The contents page also works like a small map. Early entries establish the issue’s first set of voices; around the middle, Rain in the Night by Lucia Clark Markham changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Orchestration by Judith Tractman. 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 Dorothy E. Collins, Mary Carolyn Davies, Harrison Conrard, William Stanley Braithwaite, Marvin Luter Hill, Kate Quinan Foster, Hazel Hall, and Alice Barkley, along with 15 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, Love, and Urban life—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 Spring Storm by Dorothy E. Collins, turn next to Rain in the Night by Lucia Clark Markham, and finish with Orchestration by Judith Tractman. 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.
Contributors
- Dorothy E. Collins — Poet
- Mary Carolyn Davies — Poet
- Harrison Conrard — Poet
- William Stanley Braithwaite — Poet
- Marvin Luter Hill — Poet
- Kate Quinan Foster — Poet
- Hazel Hall — Poet
- Alice Barkley — Poet
- Jeannette M. Collins — Poet
- Hilda Brann Boulton — Poet
- Bertha McE. Knipe — Poet
- Allene Gates — Poet
- Lucia Clark Markham — Poet
- J. R. Moreland — Poet
- Helen Frazee-Bower — Poet
- Doris Hutchins — Poet
- Kalfus Kurtz Gusling — Poet
- Annie Higgins — Poet
- Jack Hyatt, Jr — Poet
- Mary Coles Carrington — Poet
- Read Bain — Poet
- Richard Butler Glaenzer — Poet
- Judith Tractman — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Spring Storm — Dorothy E. Collins [Poem, p. 3]
- Lake Coeur d’Alene — Mary Carolyn Davies [Poem, p. 4]
- “Donna, Mona, Doris, Dolf, Sybil, — Mary Carolyn Davies [Poem, p. 5]
- The Romancer — Harrison Conrard [Poem, p. 6]
- An Old Moon — William Stanley Braithwaite [Poem, p. 6]
- March Storm — Marvin Luter Hill [Poem, p. 7]
- Joyous — Kate Quinan Foster [Poem, p. 7]
- The Hippity-Hopper — Hazel Hall [Poem, p. 8]
- Pursuit — Hazel Hall [Poem, p. 9]
- Stranger — Hazel Hall [Poem, p. 9]
- Profit — Hazel Hall [Poem, p. 9]
- The Way She Walks — Hazel Hall [Poem, p. 10]
- Grey Rain — Alice Barkley [Poem, p. 10]
- On the Arrival of Mary — Jeannette M. Collins [Poem, p. 11]
- Beggars — Hilda Brann Boulton [Poem, p. 11]
- The Almond Blossoms — Bertha McE. Knipe [Poem, p. 12]
- Concerning a Love of Clothes — Allene Gates [Poem, p. 13]
- Rain in the Night — Lucia Clark Markham [Poem, p. 14]
- A Birch Tree Singing — Lucia Clark Markham [Poem, p. 14]
- “I Do Not Think the Dead Drift Far” — J. R. Moreland [Poem, p. 15]
- Dandelions — J. R. Moreland [Poem, p. 15]
- The Tiger City — Helen Frazee-Bower [Poem, p. 16]
- Travelers — Helen Frazee-Bower [Poem, p. 16]
- New Beauty — Helen Frazee-Bower [Poem, p. 17]
- Your Room — Doris Hutchins [Poem, p. 18]
- A Kiss in the Rain — Kalfus Kurtz Gusling [Poem, p. 18]
- I Remember — Annie Higgins [Poem, p. 19]
- All Night — Annie Higgins [Poem, p. 19]
- Blindness — Jack Hyatt, Jr [Poem, p. 20]
- Similia — Jack Hyatt, Jr [Poem, p. 20]
- The Vase — Mary Coles Carrington [Poem, p. 21]
- The Secret — Read Bain [Poem, p. 21]
- Indelible — Richard Butler Glaenzer [Poem, p. 22]
- Catalina Days — Richard Butler Glaenzer [Poem, p. 22]
- Orchestration — Judith Tractman [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. 2, no. 11, March 1923. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.