Journal Issue
This October 1922 number of The Lyric West is best met through the writing itself. It contains 28 named pieces or sections, beginning with Chant of Autumn by Clark Ashton Smith, Weather Report by Marie Emilie Gilchrist, and Meadow Lark by Clare Shipman. 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 Cornelia Meade Scarborough’s The Desert Passes. The poem organizes description through sentence-length lines around “Waste of tortured earth”; emphasis shifts through image, enjambment, and changes in syntactic pace, bringing Western landscape without the usual pastoral polish into the magazine’s field of subjects. Elsewhere, Chant of Autumn and Weather Report 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, The Painter by Claribel Weeks Avery changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Vexed Love by Whitelaw Saunders. 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 Clark Ashton Smith, Marie Emilie Gilchrist, Clare Shipman, Caroline Ainslie, Glenn Ward Dresbach, Faith Maris, Lucy Hale Sturges, and Idella Purnell, along with 18 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, Desert, 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 Chant of Autumn by Clark Ashton Smith, turn next to The Painter by Claribel Weeks Avery, and finish with Vexed Love by Whitelaw Saunders. 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
- Clark Ashton Smith — Poet
- Marie Emilie Gilchrist — Poet
- Clare Shipman — Poet
- Caroline Ainslie — Poet
- Glenn Ward Dresbach — Poet
- Faith Maris — Poet
- Lucy Hale Sturges — Poet
- Idella Purnell — Poet
- Cornelia Meade Scarborough — Poet
- Edith Osborne — Poet
- Margaret Adelaide Wilson — Poet
- Anna Rozilla Crever — Poet
- Torrey Connor — Poet
- Isaac Jenkinson Frazee — Poet
- Claribel Weeks Avery — Poet
- Lowell C. Chamberlain — Poet
- Winifred Gray Stewart — Poet
- Neal Gallatin — Poet
- Virgil Geddes — Poet
- Evelyn M. Watson — Poet
- Virginia Skelton — Poet
- Philip Gray — Poet
- Helen Schlesinger — Poet
- Elizabeth Coatsworth — Poet
- Wheaton Hale Brewer — Poet
- Whitelaw Saunders — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Chant of Autumn — Clark Ashton Smith [Poem, p. 3]
- Weather Report — Marie Emilie Gilchrist [Poem, p. 4]
- Meadow Lark — Clare Shipman [Poem, p. 4]
- Reproof — Caroline Ainslie [Poem, p. 4]
- The Painted Desert — Glenn Ward Dresbach [Poem, p. 5]
- Sand Lily — Faith Maris [Poem, p. 9]
- The Desert — Lucy Hale Sturges [Poem, p. 9]
- Imperial Valley — Idella Purnell [Poem, p. 10]
- The Desert Passes — Cornelia Meade Scarborough [Poem, p. 11]
- Desert Sage — Edith Osborne [Poem, p. 12]
- The Quail’s Grace — Margaret Adelaide Wilson [Poem, p. 13]
- The Century Plant — Anna Rozilla Crever [Poem, p. 13]
- Poinsettias — Torrey Connor [Poem, p. 13]
- Desert Suite — Isaac Jenkinson Frazee [Poem, p. 14]
- The Painter — Claribel Weeks Avery [Poem, p. 15]
- Lines to Mount Rainier — Lowell C. Chamberlain [Poem, p. 16]
- Sky Wind — Winifred Gray Stewart [Poem, p. 17]
- Tumble-Weed Ladies — Neal Gallatin [Poem, p. 17]
- Prairie Fires — Virgil Geddes [Poem, p. 18]
- The Canyon Cascade — Evelyn M. Watson [Poem, p. 19]
- Out Yonder — Virginia Skelton [Poem, p. 20]
- Victory — Philip Gray [Poem, p. 21]
- Blue Moths in Yosemite — Helen Schlesinger [Poem, p. 22]
- The Ravens — Elizabeth Coatsworth [Poem, p. 22]
- Red Embers — Wheaton Hale Brewer [Poem, p. 23]
- Equinox — Wheaton Hale Brewer [Poem, p. 23]
- Theme for a Ballet — Whitelaw Saunders [Poem, p. 24]
- Vexed Love — Whitelaw Saunders [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. 2, no. 6, October 1922. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.