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Accelerant
In his latest collection, accelerant, Bill Yarrow bears witness to nature’s and mankind’s fierce wiles. But Yarrow never forgets to be poetic, nor does he skimp on his trademark zaniness. While most poets opt for serenity, Yarrow opines that “the only chance for happiness / is to excommunicate all calm.” By eschewing tameness for his unique brand of mayhem, Yarrow does exactly what poets should speaks his mind and throws caution to the wind. — Cindy Hochman, author of Habeas Corpus
53 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 1, 2019
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3 people want to read
About the author
Bill Yarrow
42 books92 followers
I am the author of the following books of poems: Critique of Pure Dreaming (academia.edu 2023), Flying Blind (Yavanika Press 2020), Accelerant (Nixes Mate Books 2019), Against Prompts (Lit Fest Press 2018), We All Saw it Coming (Locofo Chaps 2017), The Vig of Love (Glass Lyre Press 2016), Blasphemer (Lit Fest Press 2015), The Lice of Christ (MadHat Press 2014), Incompetent Translations and Inept Haiku (Cervena Barva Press, 2013), Pointed Sentences (BlazeVOX, 2012), Fourteen (Naked Mannekin, 2011), and Wrench (erbacce press, 2009). I have published widely in print and online journals such as RHINO, Confrontation, Gargoyle, Contrary, DIAGRAM, Thrush, PANK, Poetry International, Iodine Poetry Journal, and FRiGG. I am also professor emeritus of English at Joliet Junior College where I taught Creative Writing, Introduction to Film Study, and Introduction to Shakespeare.
Free download of "Critique of Pure Dreaming," "The Apnea Poems," "Fourteen," "100 Poems Under 100 Words," and other works at academia.edu
"Bill Yarrow hits new heights with this poetry book; it has his intellectual prowess coupled with a deep vulnerability...a breathless read that left me wanting more. Most highly recommended."
—Susan Tepper, Amazon and Facebook review of The Vig of Love
"I finished your new book, and it is excellent!!!! You have a wonderful handle on imagery and metaphor. The surrealists would include you as one of theirs. As you know, I don't like many modern poets, but you are at the top of my like list."
—Larry Mesirow Facebook review of The Vig of Love
"I was overwhelmed by the richness of this collection....Always a master of precision, Yarrow writes like silver lace on silver cloth of unpaid lovers’ debts, the past’s weight, and the sorrows of the present. There is incredible beauty in The Vig of Love, gorgeous imagery, and sinuous style. I felt the author had arrived at a place of perfect pitch, the high-wire walk between pleasure and pain as though the act of a mesmerist.."
—Stephanie Dickinson, author of Love Highway, editor of Rain Mountain Press
"Just finished Blasphemer. I love your sense of humor and your willingness to push the envelope by looking askance at sacred subjects. Good poetry helps us see something in a way that we've never envisioned it before. You succeed admirably in that respect. Yours is a book that I unreservedly recommend."
—Richard L. Hanson
Blasphemer is everything a worshiper of contemporary poetry is looking for. Thought provoking, experimental at times, complemented with a fair amount of humor and transformative language, Yarrow is a genius at exploring, and ultimately splintering, the root of our belief systems—religion, society, politics, family, and yes, the blessed writing community."
—Julie Demoff-Larson, Blot Lit Reviews
"Bill Yarrow’s very own brand of blasphemy often ends up sounding like an offbeat celebration of what Stevens called 'things as they are.' Yarrow’s complex view of reality owes a lot to his optimism and LOL sense of humor. You will find much to cherish in Yarrow’s new book, not least its range, its versatility."
—Jaime Reyes, Amazon customer review
"Yarrow's work questions traditional religion, love, and western culture in this shocking and inspiring work. 'There's No Crying in Poetry' was extremely well done and my personal favorite."
—dramaqueen17, Amazon customer review
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May 19, 2020A Review of Accelerant
by Shelley Carpenter, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal
World-building. That is what came to this reader’s mind when I finished the last poem in Bill Yarrow’s collection, Accelerant. Each poem brings the reader to a betwixt place, real or imagined. A split-second moment communicating a universe of thought. Feelings. Ideas connected with Yarrow’s well-chosen vocabulary and punctuation, steeped in the abstract as well as nostalgia. For me, it was like each poem opened a door to an unseen space. I call it a twilight space. Unique and sometimes unsettling, perhaps because it is partially recognizable. Yarrow evokes an idea and then he populates it with intriguing elements, elegant and gritty. Familiar and yet perplexing. I pondered on some of the poems in this collection for days, like this one whose title suggests but offers no explanation:
Machete
aspirin and Band-Aids in baggies
astronauts with flags on their swimsuits
addicts with raging colitis
none of the above
blandishment heaped upon Girl Scouts
board games invented by florists
beachcombers drunk at the drive-in
none of the above
magnets left in a chapel
manatees shunted in tunnels
mystics sedated with sulfur
none of the above
wellness empowered by ampoules
weather defended by dancers
whimsy unharnessed to outlook
none of the above
Despite my curiosity, I marveled at the alliteration, the absence of punctuation, and repetition of the last line in each stanza. The poem is a list of people, objects, and ideas paired in a nonsensical partnerships that have purpose and yet no explanation. I enjoyed every word.
Repetition, alliteration, and interesting structure, indeed, are a few of the hallmarks in Yarrow’s collection of forty poems. I loved the first sentence in “Sin Embargo”: I like badness.
Yarrow makes a list on this subject that sounds terribly terrific especially when read aloud as all poems should be read.
I like badness. Don’t all the really good
Films have the word “bad” in their titles?
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Bad
Day at Black Rock. Bad Lieutenant.
Baadasssss! The Bad and the
Beautiful. The Bad Seed.
Evil’s another story, a story
whose orphan narrator is misery,
married to pain, son of suffering,
sibling of spleen. I have seen evil.
If you have too, you know there’s
But one bad way to get rid of evil.
Retrieve the ragged dagger. The night
Is just weak enough for insurrection.
Other poems have a reverse mirror-like structure that seem to end as they begin as in the case of “Not a Villanelle.” While other poems reveal their structure in their conclusion like “Poet between Oxnard and Van Nuys” which is a combination of description and lists, and lists loving details of a spectacular summer evidenced in the musings of poet gazing out a passenger train window at the landscape outside and the internal one happening as well, in tandem:
The butter of summer was melting onto
the toast of the town, a town which I had
visited only in dreams
Another poem I liked describes a western U.S. landscape. I think. A landscape the poet knows well and as a reader I recognize, too. The poem is “Less Scenery” and the words are set in an interesting array of line indents and white space on the page that continues in a trajectory that may relate to the title and perhaps a guided message within its context through the use of very American establishments such as Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, and other generic structures that seem to creep up on the western landscape of “arroyos” and “mesas” and “avocado trees.” Perhaps it is the window view from another ride through the American landscape. The landscape of American dream? Or perhaps it is a sociopolitical commentary on America today. Maybe both.
Yarrow’s poems also have a nostalgic quality to them. “Pinochle in My Snout” is a snapshot in time of a family party absent of cell phones and social media. A bygone era in popular culture. Familiar and a tad bittersweet.
The paneled linoleum basement rec room
with tables set up for pinochle, salami, and
schnapps. My uncles, grandfather and father
at one table; my aunts and mother at the other.
The blurry TV on. The bookcases with glass
fronts and carved locked doors holding auction
volumes and foreign coins. My three sisters
in ballerina tutus running up and down stairs.
My unemployed younger cousins on the back lawn
smoking Luckies. My coiffed older cousins discussing
the subdivisions of the Republican future. Albums
of peeling Polaroids, dirty doilies, fuzzy rugs.
The fetching wreckage of an arsoned heart. “Does
anyone want anything else to eat? Anyone? Anyone?”
Accelerant is an intrepid collection of gutsy poems. A pager turner in that each poem is unique in its structure, voice, and message. For forty days I read one of Yarrow’s poems with my morning coffee and knew with each visitation, I would be taken to a new place, down an interesting path, or a look back to a familiar space seen through Bill Yarrow’s very cool and penetrating perspective.
by Shelley Carpenter, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal
World-building. That is what came to this reader’s mind when I finished the last poem in Bill Yarrow’s collection, Accelerant. Each poem brings the reader to a betwixt place, real or imagined. A split-second moment communicating a universe of thought. Feelings. Ideas connected with Yarrow’s well-chosen vocabulary and punctuation, steeped in the abstract as well as nostalgia. For me, it was like each poem opened a door to an unseen space. I call it a twilight space. Unique and sometimes unsettling, perhaps because it is partially recognizable. Yarrow evokes an idea and then he populates it with intriguing elements, elegant and gritty. Familiar and yet perplexing. I pondered on some of the poems in this collection for days, like this one whose title suggests but offers no explanation:
Machete
aspirin and Band-Aids in baggies
astronauts with flags on their swimsuits
addicts with raging colitis
none of the above
blandishment heaped upon Girl Scouts
board games invented by florists
beachcombers drunk at the drive-in
none of the above
magnets left in a chapel
manatees shunted in tunnels
mystics sedated with sulfur
none of the above
wellness empowered by ampoules
weather defended by dancers
whimsy unharnessed to outlook
none of the above
Despite my curiosity, I marveled at the alliteration, the absence of punctuation, and repetition of the last line in each stanza. The poem is a list of people, objects, and ideas paired in a nonsensical partnerships that have purpose and yet no explanation. I enjoyed every word.
Repetition, alliteration, and interesting structure, indeed, are a few of the hallmarks in Yarrow’s collection of forty poems. I loved the first sentence in “Sin Embargo”: I like badness.
Yarrow makes a list on this subject that sounds terribly terrific especially when read aloud as all poems should be read.
I like badness. Don’t all the really good
Films have the word “bad” in their titles?
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Bad
Day at Black Rock. Bad Lieutenant.
Baadasssss! The Bad and the
Beautiful. The Bad Seed.
Evil’s another story, a story
whose orphan narrator is misery,
married to pain, son of suffering,
sibling of spleen. I have seen evil.
If you have too, you know there’s
But one bad way to get rid of evil.
Retrieve the ragged dagger. The night
Is just weak enough for insurrection.
Other poems have a reverse mirror-like structure that seem to end as they begin as in the case of “Not a Villanelle.” While other poems reveal their structure in their conclusion like “Poet between Oxnard and Van Nuys” which is a combination of description and lists, and lists loving details of a spectacular summer evidenced in the musings of poet gazing out a passenger train window at the landscape outside and the internal one happening as well, in tandem:
The butter of summer was melting onto
the toast of the town, a town which I had
visited only in dreams
Another poem I liked describes a western U.S. landscape. I think. A landscape the poet knows well and as a reader I recognize, too. The poem is “Less Scenery” and the words are set in an interesting array of line indents and white space on the page that continues in a trajectory that may relate to the title and perhaps a guided message within its context through the use of very American establishments such as Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, and other generic structures that seem to creep up on the western landscape of “arroyos” and “mesas” and “avocado trees.” Perhaps it is the window view from another ride through the American landscape. The landscape of American dream? Or perhaps it is a sociopolitical commentary on America today. Maybe both.
Yarrow’s poems also have a nostalgic quality to them. “Pinochle in My Snout” is a snapshot in time of a family party absent of cell phones and social media. A bygone era in popular culture. Familiar and a tad bittersweet.
The paneled linoleum basement rec room
with tables set up for pinochle, salami, and
schnapps. My uncles, grandfather and father
at one table; my aunts and mother at the other.
The blurry TV on. The bookcases with glass
fronts and carved locked doors holding auction
volumes and foreign coins. My three sisters
in ballerina tutus running up and down stairs.
My unemployed younger cousins on the back lawn
smoking Luckies. My coiffed older cousins discussing
the subdivisions of the Republican future. Albums
of peeling Polaroids, dirty doilies, fuzzy rugs.
The fetching wreckage of an arsoned heart. “Does
anyone want anything else to eat? Anyone? Anyone?”
Accelerant is an intrepid collection of gutsy poems. A pager turner in that each poem is unique in its structure, voice, and message. For forty days I read one of Yarrow’s poems with my morning coffee and knew with each visitation, I would be taken to a new place, down an interesting path, or a look back to a familiar space seen through Bill Yarrow’s very cool and penetrating perspective.
Displaying 1 of 1 review