Journal Issue
Open this December 1923 issue of The Lyric West and the contents begin making their own introductions. It contains 39 named pieces or sections, beginning with Gifts by John Northern Hilliard, The Carpenter by Siddie Joe Johnson, and Natale by Josephine Van Dolzen Pease. 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 Edith Miniter’s Purple Window Glass. The poem organizes description through sentence-length lines around “The Squire’s house, we call it”; emphasis shifts through image, enjambment, and changes in syntactic pace, bringing the modern city into the magazine’s field of subjects. Elsewhere, Gifts and The Carpenter keep the experimental turn in contact with the issue’s broader lyric range. The presence of a named form such as Sonnet of Undefeat makes the contrast especially legible: innovation occurs beside inherited measure, not after its disappearance. 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 Torch by Beth Cheney Nichols changes the view; the closing stretch reaches The Betrothal by Paul S. Nickerson. 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 John Northern Hilliard, Siddie Joe Johnson, Josephine Van Dolzen Pease, Julia Powell, Oscar Williams, Clare Shipman, Margaret Tod Ritter, and Sydney King Russell, along with 28 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 Gifts by John Northern Hilliard, turn next to The Torch by Beth Cheney Nichols, and finish with The Betrothal by Paul S. Nickerson. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 38 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 58 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
- John Northern Hilliard — Poet
- Siddie Joe Johnson — Poet
- Josephine Van Dolzen Pease — Poet
- Julia Powell — Poet
- Oscar Williams — Poet
- Clare Shipman — Poet
- Margaret Tod Ritter — Poet
- Sydney King Russell — Poet
- E. MacAlister Hepburn — Poet
- Myrtle Levy Gaylord — Poet
- Grace Noll Crowell — Poet
- Claribel W. Avery — Poet
- Idella Purnell — Poet
- Elizabeth J. Coatsworth — Poet
- Marvin Luter Hill — Poet
- Harold Vinal — Poet
- Eda Lou Walton — Poet
- Beth Cheney Nichols — Poet
- Antoinette DeCoursey Patterson — Poet
- Henrietta C. Penny — Poet
- Helen Frazee-Bower — Poet
- William Ellwell Onions — Poet
- Glenn Ward Dresbach — Poet
- Edith Miniter — Poet
- Georgia Currier Nyman — Poet
- Ethel Van Cise — Poet
- Sarah Bixby Smith — Poet
- Winifred Heath — Poet
- Lois Atkins — Poet
- Jack Hyatt, Jr — Poet
- Lilian White Spencer — Poet
- Olive Young Traver — Poet
- J. Corson Miller — Poet
- Ethel M. Colson — Poet
- Mary Sinton Leitch — Poet
- Paul S. Nickerson — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Gifts — John Northern Hilliard [Poem, p. 3]
- The Carpenter — Siddie Joe Johnson [Poem, p. 4]
- Natale — Josephine Van Dolzen Pease [Poem, p. 4]
- Noel — Josephine Van Dolzen Pease [Poem, p. 5]
- Gifts — Julia Powell [Poem, p. 5]
- At Love’s Door — Oscar Williams [Poem, p. 5]
- In the Light of Christmas Candles — Clare Shipman [Poem, p. 6]
- Sonnet of Undefeat — Margaret Tod Ritter [Poem, p. 6]
- Alms — Sydney King Russell [Poem, p. 7]
- To Her Whose Lover Lies Dead — E. MacAlister Hepburn [Poem, p. 7]
- Wild Weather — Julia Powell [Poem, p. 8]
- I Would Be Silent — Myrtle Levy Gaylord [Poem, p. 8]
- Poems — Grace Noll Crowell [Poem, p. 9]
- Brave Beauty — Claribel W. Avery [Poem, p. 9]
- Music — Idella Purnell [Poem, p. 10]
- The Three Gifts — Elizabeth J. Coatsworth [Poem, p. 11]
- The Doubter — Marvin Luter Hill [Poem, p. 12]
- Sonnet — Harold Vinal [Poem, p. 12]
- Upon Reading the Browning Letters — Eda Lou Walton [Poem, p. 13]
- The Torch — Beth Cheney Nichols [Poem, p. 13]
- MY SONG! — Beth Cheney Nichols [Poem, p. 13]
- In Old Siena — Antoinette DeCoursey Patterson [Poem, p. 14]
- The North Wind — Henrietta C. Penny [Poem, p. 16]
- Winter Night in San Francisco Harbor — Helen Frazee-Bower [Poem, p. 16]
- Wind — William Ellwell Onions [Poem, p. 17]
- A Cock Crows Near the Desert — Glenn Ward Dresbach [Poem, p. 17]
- Purple Window Glass — Edith Miniter [Poem, p. 18]
- And Autumn Passes — Georgia Currier Nyman [Poem, p. 20]
- San Diego Bay — Ethel Van Cise [Poem, p. 20]
- My Coyote — Sarah Bixby Smith [Poem, p. 21]
- To a Certain Poet — Winifred Heath [Poem, p. 21]
- Hill-Charm — Lois Atkins [Poem, p. 22]
- Prayer — Jack Hyatt, Jr [Poem, p. 22]
- To Walt Whitman — Lilian White Spencer [Poem, p. 23]
- Youth Has Not Flown — Olive Young Traver [Poem, p. 23]
- Street-Lights — J. Corson Miller [Poem, p. 23]
- Fusion — Ethel M. Colson [Poem, p. 24]
- To Barbara — Mary Sinton Leitch [Poem, p. 24]
- The Betrothal — Paul S. Nickerson [Poem, p. 25]
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. 3, no. 8, December 1923. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.