Description: Cyclorama is a book of poems named after the theatre-sized, in-the-round oil paintings popular after the American Civil War. It features the voices of people often overlooked in representations of the war, such as nurse, child, draftee, prostitute, enslaved person, Native American soldier, and woman soldier.
Brief description: Daneen Wardrop is Professor of English at Western Michigan University. She is the author of one book of poetry, The Odds of Being, and three books of criticism: Emily Dickinson and the Labor of Clothing; Word, Birth, and Culture in the Poetry of Poe, Whitman, and Dickinson; and Emily Dickinson's Gothic.
Review Quotes: "Prepare yourself, as you read Cyclorama, to hear voices that will stay in your head long after you've put the book down, voices that seem to rise up from the depths of history. It's the women speakers here who haunt me the most as they record the horrifying loss of life and limb that circles these women like a cyclorama and at times engulfs them. Line by memorable line, Daneen Wardrop revives and adapts the form of the dramatic lyric to move from striking descriptions--of Civil War battles and wounds, places, and events--to unforgettable moments of quiet revelation."-----Ed Folsom, The University of Iowa