Extremes and Moderations: A Historical Archive of Los Angeles and Southern California Poetry

THE TEXT/TECH PAPERS

Anthologies

Compiled by Verse Writers’ Club of Southern California

1919Poetry AnthologyVerse Writers’ Club Anthologies

The Verse Writers’ Club’s first anthology proceeds as a relay among members rather than as a manifesto. Belle Cooper opens with fate, vintage, flight, travel, and cemetery memory; Estella Williamson answers with brief seasonal lyrics, and the collection then widens through legend, wartime elegy, city weariness, longing, and domestic song. Grace Atherton Dennen’s substantial group is formally varied—workshop observation, knitting song, dawn lyric, ghost-city meditation, patriotic narrative, and memorial—while Sarah Pulver McLean places New England weather beside the San Gabriel Valley, yucca, cinema, and mariposa lilies.

Most poems use rhyme, regular stanzas, song measures, or sonnet-like compression, but the shared forms carry markedly different voices. Ernest McGaffey’s dramatic animal poems, Snow Longley’s philosophical and romantic lyrics, Ben Field’s compact nature pieces, and Florence Parker Bornholdt’s mythic narratives broaden the register. Virginia Burton Bradley closes the largest group with Chinatown, aviation, dialect performances, field songs, and seasonal symphonies before “California Bluejay” and “My Thoughts of Thee” bring the volume to a quieter end. References to the First World War sit beside local gardens and club life, showing public history entering an intimate literary network. The book’s variety records the club’s actual practice: critique, recitation, periodical publication, and collective preservation across differing levels of experience.

Digital Reading Edition, Revised · Public PDF

Contents

A reading-edition note, the club’s dedication, and its original acknowledgment precede seventy-two poems arranged in source sequence. The contents move through member groups and include regional landscape, war, work, love, public memory, dialect, mythic narrative, and domestic lyric.

TitleCreatorGenre / typeReader PDF page
A Note on This Reading EditionBrian Kim Stefanseditorial introduction and edition notereader PDF p. 2
Original DedicationVerse Writers’ Club of Southern Californiadedicationreader PDF p. 3
Original AcknowledgmentVerse Writers’ Club of Southern Californiaacknowledgmentreader PDF p. 4
FateBelle Cooperpoemreader PDF p. 8
The VintageBelle Cooperpoemreader PDF p. 8
If I Had WingsBelle Cooperpoemreader PDF p. 9
In WarwickshireBelle Cooperpoemreader PDF p. 9
CapriBelle Cooperpoemreader PDF p. 10
At Four O’ClockBelle Cooperpoemreader PDF p. 11
From Père la ChaiseBelle Cooperpoemreader PDF p. 11
Daffodils and SpringtimeEstella Williamsonpoemreader PDF p. 12
SpringEstella Williamsonpoemreader PDF p. 12
BubblesEstella Williamsonpoemreader PDF p. 13
My InspirationJay Dwigginspoemreader PDF p. 14
A Legend of the SnowSara Earlpoemreader PDF p. 14
Christmas, 1917Sydney Spraguepoemreader PDF p. 15
The Wooden CrossEsther Yarnellpoemreader PDF p. 17
UnsungEsther Yarnellpoemreader PDF p. 18
City BoundEsther Yarnellpoemreader PDF p. 18
LongingJoy Bennettpoemreader PDF p. 19
GoneJessie Yarnell Kimballpoemreader PDF p. 19
Maidenhair FernJessie Yarnell Kimballpoemreader PDF p. 20
Wind of DawnGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 21
From a Workshop WindowGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 22
A Knitting SongGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 22
The Coming of DawnGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 23
EnchantmentGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 23
On the HillGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 24
Ghost CitiesGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 25
LexingtonGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 26
I Hope That I RememberGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 27
In MemoriamGrace Atherton Dennenpoemreader PDF p. 28
October in New EnglandSarah Pulver McLeanpoemreader PDF p. 28
San Gabriel Valley in WinterSarah Pulver McLeanpoemreader PDF p. 29
I WonderSarah Pulver McLeanpoemreader PDF p. 30
The YuccaSarah Pulver McLeanpoemreader PDF p. 30
Te Deum LaudamusSarah Pulver McLeanpoemreader PDF p. 31
Cinema ShadowsSarah Pulver McLeanpoemreader PDF p. 32
Mariposa LiliesSarah Pulver McLeanpoemreader PDF p. 32
The RattlesnakeErnest McGaffeypoemreader PDF p. 33
Mavourneen AsthoreErnest McGaffeypoemreader PDF p. 34
A SpectatorSnow Longleypoemreader PDF p. 35
A Moon FantasySnow Longleypoemreader PDF p. 36
The WorkerSnow Longleypoemreader PDF p. 37
DisenchantmentSnow Longleypoemreader PDF p. 38
PhilosophySnow Longleypoemreader PDF p. 38
Late LoveSnow Longleypoemreader PDF p. 39
The VagrantSnow Longleypoemreader PDF p. 40
Hail and FarewellSarah Pulver McLeanpoemreader PDF p. 41
MarsBlanche E. Greenoughpoemreader PDF p. 41
The GobletGrace Wallacepoemreader PDF p. 42
Yucca on the HillsGrace Wallacepoemreader PDF p. 42
Old MothersGrace Wallacepoemreader PDF p. 43
Spring RainBen Fieldpoemreader PDF p. 43
Gipsy CompensationBen Fieldpoemreader PDF p. 44
A VisionBen Fieldpoemreader PDF p. 45
ArjunaFlorence Parker Bornholdtpoemreader PDF p. 46
LouanaFlorence Parker Bornholdtpoemreader PDF p. 46
ComprehensionFlorence Parker Bornholdtpoemreader PDF p. 47
The CityFlorence Parker Bornholdtpoemreader PDF p. 48
On Hearing an Etude by BortkiewiczPauline Barringtonpoemreader PDF p. 49
Secret ThoughtsW. H. Bainbridgepoemreader PDF p. 50
Balboa, California—Where Breakers MeetKatharine Bainbridgepoemreader PDF p. 50
The Lily PondVirginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 51
ChinatownVirginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 51
Songs of a Corn FieldVirginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 53
The Will-o’-the-WispVirginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 54
The AviatorVirginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 55
Love's LamentVirginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 56
The Busy BeeVirginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 56
When de San' Man ComesVirginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 57
Bre’r Rastus Leads de Meetin’Virginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 58
Summer SymphoniesVirginia Burton Bradleypoemreader PDF p. 59
California BluejayBen Fieldpoemreader PDF p. 60
My Thoughts of TheeBlanche E. Greenoughpoemreader PDF p. 61
Contributors
Publication details
Subjects and editorial notes

Subjects

Keywords

Verse Writers’ Club Anthology of Verse Southern California Harr Wagner 1919 literary clubs

Continuity notes

Part of the shared Anthologies and Documents collection.

Edition note

The formatted edition presents the selected source text in a stable, searchable reading format with modern navigation. Source scans remain private editorial evidence and are not part of the public upload. For the website upload, the page canvas was proportionally fitted to a 6 × 9 inch trim without cropping or changing the text.

Source note

Metadata and contents were checked against the 61-page formatted PDF and the identified source scan files where available.

Rights and citation

Copyright notice

Copyright in public-domain source texts has expired in the United States. Copyright in later works and new editorial matter remains with the respective authors, editors, publishers, or successors.

Rights status

Public Domain

Rights basis

The original 1919 publication is in the public domain in the United States. New editorial introduction, apparatus, and design were prepared in 2026.

Suggested citation

Verse Writers’ Club of Southern California. Anthology of Verse, 1916–1919. Harr Wagner Publishing Co., 1919. Text/Tech Anthologies and Documents, reader’s edition, 2026.