Journal Issue
This January 1924 number of The Lyric West is best met through the writing itself. It contains 36 named pieces or sections, beginning with Beginnings by Grace Atherton Dennen, A Precept by Clark Ashton Smith, and Words by Faith Baldwin. 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 Careers, Medora C. Addison brings the issue’s modernist pressure into focus. The poem organizes description through sentence-length lines around “Once he was young and dreamed of high romance”; emphasis shifts through image, enjambment, and changes in syntactic pace, bringing work and modern routine into the magazine’s field of subjects. Arthur H. Nethercot’s To a Photograph in a Show-Case Near Hull House answers it from another angle: it organizes a speaking voice through sentence-length lines around “It would be so easy”; 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 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, The Wanderer by Winifred Johnston changes the view; the closing stretch reaches The Poet’s Voice by Eunice Mitchell Lehmer. 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 Grace Atherton Dennen, Clark Ashton Smith, Faith Baldwin, Hazel Hall, Virginia Stait, Elizabeth J. Coatsworth, Elizabeth K. McGowen, and Edwine Behre, along with 25 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, and Little magazines—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 Beginnings by Grace Atherton Dennen, turn next to The Wanderer by Winifred Johnston, and finish with The Poet’s Voice by Eunice Mitchell Lehmer. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 36 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 64 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
- Grace Atherton Dennen — Poet
- Clark Ashton Smith — Poet
- Faith Baldwin — Poet
- Hazel Hall — Poet
- Virginia Stait — Poet
- Elizabeth J. Coatsworth — Poet
- Elizabeth K. McGowen — Poet
- Edwine Behre — Poet
- Ted Olson — Poet
- Mary Carolyn Davies — Poet
- Esther Clark Hill — Poet
- Alice Barkley — Poet
- Ellen Coit Elliott — Poet
- Harold Herbert Rogers — Poet
- Catherine Parmenter — Poet
- Winifred Johnston — Poet
- E. Richard Shipp — Poet
- Frances Beebe — Poet
- Ellinor Lehnherr Norcross — Poet
- Herschelle Bek — Poet
- Ruth Loomis Skeen — Poet
- Floyd Meredith — Poet
- Narcisse W. Wood — Poet
- Marion Couthouy Smith — Poet
- John Curtis Underwood — Poet
- Medora C. Addison — Poet
- Arthur H. Nethercot — Poet
- Anna Kalfus Spero — Poet
- Doris G. Wilson — Poet
- Oliver S. Arata — Poet
- Eleanor Hammond — Poet
- Wright Field — Poet
- Eunice Mitchell Lehmer — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Beginnings — Grace Atherton Dennen [Poem, p. 3]
- A Precept — Clark Ashton Smith [Poem, p. 4]
- Words — Faith Baldwin [Poem, p. 5]
- Short Songs for a Long Day — Hazel Hall [Poem, p. 6]
- Tethered — Virginia Stait [Poem, p. 6]
- The Sandals of Fra Junipero Serra — Elizabeth J. Coatsworth [Poem, p. 8]
- The Sword of Alvarado — Elizabeth J. Coatsworth [Poem, p. 8]
- Poem to Sleep — Elizabeth J. Coatsworth [Poem, p. 8]
- Storm — Elizabeth K. McGowen [Poem, p. 8]
- Sketches from the Tyrol—IV — Edwine Behre [Poem, p. 9]
- Hieroglyphs — Ted Olson [Poem, p. 9]
- A Builder of Fires — Ted Olson [Poem, p. 9]
- The Wind’s a Tramp — Mary Carolyn Davies [Poem, p. 10]
- The Gifts — Esther Clark Hill [Poem, p. 10]
- Make Me Drunken with Color — Alice Barkley [Poem, p. 11]
- Taurus — Ellen Coit Elliott [Poem, p. 11]
- Bizarre — Harold Herbert Rogers [Poem, p. 12]
- The West — Catherine Parmenter [Poem, p. 13]
- The Wanderer — Winifred Johnston [Poem, p. 14]
- A Murdered Monarch — E. Richard Shipp [Poem, p. 15]
- Too Definite I Grow — Frances Beebe [Poem, p. 16]
- Barriers — Ellinor Lehnherr Norcross [Poem, p. 16]
- Consolation — Herschelle Bek [Poem, p. 17]
- Credo — Ruth Loomis Skeen [Poem, p. 17]
- Cause and Effect — Floyd Meredith [Poem, p. 18]
- Irresponsibilities — Narcisse W. Wood [Poem, p. 21]
- Recompense — Marion Couthouy Smith [Poem, p. 21]
- Carmen de Ciudad — John Curtis Underwood [Poem, p. 22]
- Careers — Medora C. Addison [Poem, p. 22]
- To a Photograph in a Show-Case Near Hull — Arthur H. Nethercot [Poem, p. 23]
- The Progress of Youth — Anna Kalfus Spero [Poem, p. 24]
- Impressions — Doris G. Wilson [Poem, p. 26]
- The Chinese Dagger — Oliver S. Arata [Poem, p. 26]
- From a Street Corner — Eleanor Hammond [Poem, p. 27]
- Embers — Wright Field [Poem, p. 28]
- The Poet’s Voice — Eunice Mitchell Lehmer [Poem, p. 28]
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. 9, January 1924. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.