This Wild Joy that Thrills Outside the Law
Parnilis Media (Reissue)
$10.00
You can purchase a copy here.
Reviewed by Jennifer Schneider
Bob Dylan has noted that “To live outside the law, you must be honest.” In This Wild Joy that Thrills Outside the Law, this message is taken to heart. Bill Van Buskirk draws upon his far-reaching adventures and experiences (including life as a meter reader, professional gambler, drug counselor, stepfather, and university professor, just to name a few of his many roles) and shares work that is many things, including honest, raw, and captivating. A mix of memoir, observation, and rumination, the collection is simultaneously courageous and curious. Sentiments, ponderings, and observations (on strong women, poetry in the nude, and 42nd Street, for example) are shared with neither fear nor faint tidings.
The experience of reading poems that, once read, linger is one of life’s greatest gifts. Like a warm breeze on bare skin -- arms left tingling with anticipation, for the next soft gust of wind. Such is the experience of interacting with This Wild Joy that Thrills Outside the Law. The compilation lingers. On skin. Of heart. In thought. The compilation also inspires stirs. And itches reminiscent of times past. It’s no secret that bare skin and societal boundaries, as constructed, often conflate and sometimes conflict. This Wild Joy that Thrills Outside the Law explores societal boundaries and expectations both constructed and conflicted, all while inviting the reader along for a wild ride. The work simultaneously embraces and examines boundaries in ways that bare new ways of seeing and navigating life both within and outside the law. To read This Wild Joy that Thrills Outside the Law is to embark on a journey -- a wonderfully unique, enormously fun, and utterly relatable journey - through life and its many peculiarities. The text will both inspire new writing and prompt new ways of thinking about present writing. Of life. Of liveliness. Of living.
Don’t let the volume’s slim, solid facade fool you. The collection’s sixty-nine pages are ripe with colorful humor, stories of depth, and details so tangible you might mistake the stolen apples from years’ past (the subject of the volume’s first poem, LINEAGE 5), the time killed at a Graceland gift shop (ELVIS SIGHTINGS 44), or perhaps the burnt out textile mills along the river (THE GUARDIAN ANGEL OF MANAYUNK 34) for an impulse of today.
It’s enormously fitting that the work opens with a call to lineage (LINEAGE: “Just before his death. His mind wanders” 5) and then ends with both a message (THE MESSAGE: “When you were dying you reached out” 64) and ultimately gratitude (GRATITUDE: “I wake up. The sky clears. I see like my fathers did” 65). For at its core, the work is a celebration of life -- lived on the edges -- of being, of knowing, of feeling, and of experiencing the range of ordinary happenings that make life extraordinary.
Bill Van Buskirk takes the reader on a tour of his own life. While doing so, Van Buskirk also opens doors, windows, and memories for readers to revisit their own lives (lived on, off, and/or around the edges) and perhaps transgressions, through reflection and new appreciations of everyday life. The collection’s range is as compelling as its message. Poems explore apples stolen during youth, men returning from war, and visits to nude beaches. The topics appear of ordinary days and origins that are anything but. Readers will find familiar concepts explored in utterly unique forms. Science teaches that all human beings share DNA while maintaining unique gene sequences, and Van Buskirk capitalizes on individuality, shared commonality, and life both within and outside of familial (and familiar) boundaries. The work’s sequencing is just as compelling as its contents. With ongoing themes of lineage and roots, the experiences explored in the collection’s pieces are uniquely original and simultaneously relatable. The pieces are both daring and familiar, reimagining the familiar and offering utterly delicious takes infused of a range of both circumstance (“have just come back from killing Hitler” MY FATHER AND HIS BROTHERS 9) and emotion (“gift suffused in weather”, SNOW DAY 8).
The collection and its author are as curious as they are compelling. From blackjack to wrestling to naked men (yes, a recurring theme) carved of marble, Van Buskirk unites disparate circumstances and concepts. Each piece, compressed to a degree that leaves readers simultaneously satisfied and longing for more, balances the inevitability of life’s surprises with the often unexpected joy that accompanies an openness to the ordinary. Van Buskirk seizes then reveals the extraordinary in the ordinary. Originally published in 2010 (Infinity Publishing) as an award for winning the Grand Prize in the first biennial Joie DeVivre Book Award (Mad Poets) and republished in 2019 by Parnilis Media, Van Buskirk’s words both taunt and transcend time.
The collection tackles some of life’s biggest, most persistent questions (of truth and lies, of love and war) in pieces that are compact, unassuming, and humble. Truman Capote has said that “The problem with living outside the law is that you no longer have its protection.” This Wild Joy that Thrills Outside the Law seeks not to protect, but to reveal. The collection is wild, thrilling, and full of joy. Both taunting and embracing the limits and limitations of time, the collection yields gifts of snow days, winter stews, and culinary feasts. Of fathers and fate. Of coffee and foggy mornings. Of lineage and strong women. Of common discourse and contemplative conversation. With language, style, and tone that are both understated and remarkable, the work is written of and for anyone with a curiosity for life. For living. It’s for those who live and have lived. It’s for anyone eager to explore life surprises - both in and outside the law.
Put aside all notions of what is (or should be) lawful and savor the joy that is this collection. Enjoy the (wild) ride.
Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. She loves words, experimental poetry, and the change of seasons. She’s also a fan of late nights, crossword puzzles, and compelling underdogs. She has authored several chapbooks and full-length poetry collections, with stories, poems, and essays published in a variety of literary and scholarly journals. Sample works include Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, On Daily Puzzles: (Un)locking Invisibility, A Collection of Recollections, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups. She is currently working on her first series, which (not surprisingly) includes a novel in verse. She is the 2022-2023 Montgomery County PA Poet Laureate.