Image from California Digital News Paper Collection
John Ridge wrote “Mount Shasta” and it remains one of his famous poems. There are multiple but what makes this publication of “Mount Shasta” on July 3 1886 in Pacific Rural Press interesting has an illustration of Mount Shasta to add to the meaning of the text. When one looks at the page, the image of Mount Shasta dominates the visuals of the text. If one looks carefully at the poem, the complete text is drowned by the image of Mount Shasta. The poem is represented through imagery rather than words to convey its full meaning. As a newspaper, the image forcefully draws the reader to the center of the page with no other visual distraction. The image of Mount Shasta is almost intended to foretell the meaning the poem. Furthermore, the gap between the edges of the image to the edges of the column is significant to say that publishing “Mount Shasta” was a luxurious endeavor because of the tradition that blank spaces on a page were representations of wealth, power, prestige and importance because of its wastefulness. Lastly, the editor of Pacific Rural Press is consciously telling the reader that this poem is important to read and should be read and considered.