Journal Issue
Published in November 1927, no. 2 of The Lyric West gives readers several clear ways into the magazine. It contains 20 named pieces or sections, beginning with For a Poet by Maire nic Pilip, The Saga of the Silver Bird by Alice Rogers Hager, and Adagio by Monroe Heath. 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.
Samarkand by Lucy H. Sturges marks the issue’s most conspicuous opening toward modernist practice. The poem organizes description through sentence-length lines around “In the Persian gardens of the Samarkand”; emphasis shifts through image, enjambment, and changes in syntactic pace, bringing ordinary experience as formally unsettled lyric material into the magazine’s field of subjects. Frances Wierman’s Machinery answers it from another angle: it builds by refrain and recurrence around “What are the thoughts of machines?”; repetition carries the poem’s turn rather than merely decorating it. 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, Moon Memory by Joseph Upper changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Divertissements by Ruth Clay Price. 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 Maire nic Pilip, Alice Rogers Hager, Monroe Heath, Noel Stearn, Lucy H. Sturges, Sydney King Russell, Etha Jeanne Clark, and Lori Petri, 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, Love, and Death and elegy—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 For a Poet by Maire nic Pilip, turn next to Moon Memory by Joseph Upper, and finish with Divertissements by Ruth Clay Price. 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
- Maire nic Pilip — Poet
- Alice Rogers Hager — Poet
- Monroe Heath — Poet
- Noel Stearn — Poet
- Lucy H. Sturges — Poet
- Sydney King Russell — Poet
- Etha Jeanne Clark — Poet
- Lori Petri — Poet
- Pauline Garner Curran — Poet
- Lucile Perry Ames — Poet
- Joseph Upper — Poet
- Margaret Widdemer — Poet
- Joan Dareth Prosper — Poet
- Ralph Cheney — Poet
- Frances Wierman — Poet
- Charlotte F. Babcock — Poet
- Cecil E. C. Hodgson — Poet
- Arthur E. Christy and Lee Cheuk Po — Poet
- Elizabeth Bohm — Poet
- Ruth Clay Price — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- For a Poet — Maire nic Pilip [Poem, p. 31]
- The Saga of the Silver Bird — Alice Rogers Hager [Poem, p. 32]
- Adagio — Monroe Heath [Poem, p. 34]
- To Hymen — Noel Stearn [Poem, p. 35]
- Samarkand — Lucy H. Sturges [Poem, p. 37]
- Death the Lover — Sydney King Russell [Poem, p. 38]
- Triumph — Etha Jeanne Clark [Poem, p. 39]
- Jazz Age — Lori Petri [Poem, p. 40]
- A Little Tune o’ Tears — Pauline Garner Curran [Poem, p. 41]
- Fountains Abbey — Lucile Perry Ames [Poem, p. 41]
- Moon Memory — Joseph Upper [Poem, p. 42]
- Distance — Margaret Widdemer [Poem, p. 42]
- Nocturne — Joan Dareth Prosper [Poem, p. 43]
- Love’s Ritual — Ralph Cheney [Poem, p. 43]
- Machinery — Frances Wierman [Poem, p. 44]
- Church Windows — Charlotte F. Babcock [Poem, p. 45]
- The Garden Pool — Cecil E. C. Hodgson [Poem, p. 46]
- An Apostrophe to the Moon — Arthur E. Christy and Lee Cheuk Po [Poem, p. 47]
- Letters — Elizabeth Bohm [Poem, p. 48]
- Divertissements — Ruth Clay Price [Poem, p. 48]
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. 7, no. 2, November 1927. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.