Gunpowder Press published Dennis Schmitz’s posthumous collection, Our Music, as part of the California Poets Series in 2022. Schmitz was born in Dubuque, Iowa in 1937 and graduated from Loras College. He then moved to Chicago to serve as a community organizer. While taking graduate courses at the University of Chicago, he decided to devote himself to writing. He taught at several colleges in the Midwest before coming to California State University, Sacramento in 1966, where he was a beloved professor of English for over thirty years. As a poet, Schmitz was known for the complexity, humanity, and humor of his work. Throughout his life, he and his wife Loretta were advocates for social justice and the environment—themes that feature prominently in his writing, alongside the Iowa riverscapes of his childhood, the working-class neighborhoods of Chicago, and the rough grandeur of the California coast. His collections include We Weep for Our Strangeness, Double Exposures, Goodwill, Inc., String, Singing, Eden, About Night, The Truth Squad, and Animism. In addition, he won the di Castagnola and Shelley Memorial Awards from the Poetry Society of America, and Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. A tireless mentor to numerous writers, Schmitz’s honors culminated in being named the first poet laureate of Sacramento in 1994. He died in 2019 at his home in Oakland, California.
