Just Outside
"In JUST OUTSIDE, Barbara Schmitz sings of earth and sky, home and travel, youth and dying, in poems that range widely with humor, sadness, and surrealism, and with an over-arching love for all life. She urges us to 'Become a strong/silent tree with/ swaying branches/ in life's sweet breeze.' In spite of her claim 'It is only a rehearsal/ fpr her life in the alternate universe,' Schmitz pays close attention to this one, in poems ascending firmly into the heart of joy."
-Twyla M. Hansen, former Nebraska State Poet