Varroa Destructor

by Lee Rourke

Each of these poems occupies the space found in between poetry and prose, and more specifically: poetry and the 'poetic'. Relayed via a series of events, observations and analyses, these purposely reconstructed poems repeat a signal of everyday, humdrum decay. In detailing the minutiae of the working day - and in particular the modern, working office - 'Varroa Destructor' scrutinises those nondescript moments that ordinarily pass us by, revealing a culmination of events which may form the real substance of our daily lives.

Playfully weaving into these poems riffs, thoughts and repsonses to the works of (among others) Francis Ponge, Wallace Stevens, and Jacques Derrida, alongside personal accounts of family illness, and tapping into the blurred realities of technological living, Lee Rourke manages to create a contemporary collection which at once feels strikingly modern, vital and moving - something that is knowingly haunted by 'poetry' itself.

76 pages, Paperback

First published March 20, 2013

About the author

Lee Rourke is the author of the short-story collection Everyday, the novels The Canal (winner of the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize 2010), Vulgar Things, and the poetry collections Varroa Destructor and Vantablack. His latest novel Glitch is published by Dead Ink Books. His debut novel The Canal is being adapted to film by Storyhouse Productions, summer 2020. He is Contributing Editor for 3:AM Magazine [www.3ammagazine.com]. He lives by the sea.

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Within this collection of prose poems sounds a fresh modern voice that holds up the banality of contemporary existence to the fluorescent glare of office strip lighting. A contemporary study in miniature, written with guillotine precision.