Journal Issue
This Winter 1955 number of Variegation is best met through the writing itself. It contains 16 named pieces or sections, beginning with Enjoy the Other Emphasis as Well, Chained by Cecil Kyle, and Line Drawing by Cecil Kyle. 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.
Ada Davies’s 3-poem run, from Indelible Insect Fears to Dusk, gives this issue its clearest formal center. Most of the 15 poems are compact, but their free-verse lines vary the pace through clipped statements, longer syntactic runs, and small sequences that let one voice change pressure across several pages. What stands out is those changes of scale, as a single image is often answered by a more extended poem on the next leaf. Around that sequence, Enjoy the Other Emphasis as Well and Snake in Garden widen the issue’s range without breaking its measured, poem-by-poem concentration.
The contents page also works like a small map. Early entries establish the issue’s first set of voices; around the middle, Indelible Insect Fears by Ada Davies changes the view; the closing stretch reaches Contributors. 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 Cecil Kyle, James Schevill, Hanson Kellogg, Neeta Marquis, Ann Stanford, Ada Davies, Ing Smith, and Alan Brownjohn, along with 1 additional contributor. 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 Grover Jacoby, published by Variegation Publishing Company, 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 little magazines, American poetry, Free verse, Modernist poetry, and Love poetry—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 Enjoy the Other Emphasis as Well, turn next to Indelible Insect Fears by Ada Davies, and finish with Contributors. The clean reading edition is designed for that kind of movement. Original scan: 26 PDF pages. Reader’s edition: 19 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
- Cecil Kyle — Poet
- James Schevill — Poet
- Hanson Kellogg — Poet
- Neeta Marquis — Poet
- Ann Stanford — Poet
- Ada Davies — Poet
- Ing Smith — Poet
- Alan Brownjohn — Poet
- Elma Dean — Poet
Publication details
Full contents
- Enjoy the Other Emphasis as Well [Poem]
- Chained — Cecil Kyle [Poem, p. 3]
- Line Drawing — Cecil Kyle [Poem, p. 4]
- At the End of the Wharf — James Schevill [Poem, p. 5]
- Marriage Without Love — Hanson Kellogg [Poem, p. 6]
- Period Pincushion — Hanson Kellogg [Poem, p. 7]
- Birds of Bloom — Neeta Marquis [Poem, p. 8]
- Hopscotch — Ann Stanford [Poem, p. 9]
- Indelible Insect Fears — Ada Davies [Poem, p. 10]
- Animals — Ada Davies [Poem, p. 11]
- Dusk — Ada Davies [Poem, p. 12]
- This Property for Sale — Ing Smith [Poem, p. 13]
- Singing in a Garden — Alan Brownjohn [Poem, p. 14]
- Purposes — Alan Brownjohn [Poem, p. 15]
- Snake in Garden — Elma Dean [Poem, p. 16]
- Contributors [Contributor notes, p. 17]
Rights and citation
Copyright 1955
Copyright Status Unresolved
The issue bears a 1955 copyright notice; rights in individual contributions and the compilation have not been fully resolved.
*Variegation*, vol. X, no. 37, Winter 1955. Text/Tech Journals, reader’s edition.