Journal Issue
The October 1925 issue of The Lyric West brings its writers together without asking them to sound alike. It contains 23 named pieces or sections, beginning with Ecce Homo by Beatrice Harmon, At San Juan Capistrano by Clinton Scollard, and Arachne by Edith Mirick. 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 Patterson Greene’s The Artist Receives Notice of a Bequest. The poem organizes a speaking voice through sentence-length lines around “Her violin? Thank you. I do not want it”; shifts in syntax make inward argument audible without abandoning stanza, bringing ordinary experience as formally unsettled lyric material into the magazine’s field of subjects. Elsewhere, Ecce Homo and At San Juan Capistrano 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, African Sunset by Helen von Kolnitz Hyer changes the view; the closing stretch reaches To Fo — Passé by Paul Eldridge. 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 Beatrice Harmon, Clinton Scollard, Edith Mirick, Harvey Sellers Dye, Patterson Greene, Leslie E. Baird, Mary Brennan Clapp, and Mary Brent Whiteside, 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, Sea and coast, 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 Ecce Homo by Beatrice Harmon, turn next to African Sunset by Helen von Kolnitz Hyer, and finish with To Fo — Passé by Paul Eldridge. 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
- Beatrice Harmon — Poet
- Clinton Scollard — Poet
- Edith Mirick — Poet
- Harvey Sellers Dye — Poet
- Patterson Greene — Poet
- Leslie E. Baird — Poet
- Mary Brennan Clapp — Poet
- Mary Brent Whiteside — Poet
- Read Bain — Poet
- Mildred Plew Merryman — Poet
- Helen von Kolnitz Hyer — Poet
- Don Gordon — Poet
- Charles Howard Marsh — Poet
- Idella Purnell — Poet
- Natalie Flohr — Poet
- Geraldine Seelemire — Poet
- Joseph Upper — Poet
- Jane Morrill — Poet
- Ruth Aughiltree — Poet
- Paul Eldridge — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Ecce Homo — Beatrice Harmon [Poem, p. 3]
- At San Juan Capistrano — Clinton Scollard [Poem, p. 4]
- Arachne — Edith Mirick [Poem, p. 5]
- Romany — Harvey Sellers Dye [Poem, p. 6]
- The Artist Receives Notice of a Bequest — Patterson Greene [Poem, p. 8]
- The Pearl of a Summer’s Sea — Leslie E. Baird [Poem, p. 9]
- Pro-Cathedral — Mary Brennan Clapp [Poem, p. 10]
- Old Houses — Mary Brent Whiteside [Poem, p. 11]
- My City — Read Bain [Poem, p. 12]
- Night Ride — Mildred Plew Merryman [Poem, p. 13]
- Dragon Flies — Helen von Kolnitz Hyer [Poem, p. 14]
- African Sunset — Helen von Kolnitz Hyer [Poem, p. 15]
- Moon-Men — Don Gordon [Poem, p. 16]
- Perhaps — Charles Howard Marsh [Poem, p. 18]
- Miracles — Idella Purnell [Poem, p. 19]
- When Next You Come — Natalie Flohr [Poem, p. 20]
- Offering — Geraldine Seelemire [Poem, p. 21]
- Nude Sleeper — Joseph Upper [Poem, p. 22]
- Resurrection — Joseph Upper [Poem, p. 23]
- The Sculptor — Jane Morrill [Poem, p. 24]
- A Lady’s Way — Jane Morrill [Poem, p. 25]
- The Interloper — Ruth Aughiltree [Poem, p. 26]
- To Fo — Passé — Paul Eldridge [Poem, p. 27]
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. 5, no. 1, October 1925. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.