Each of the poems in Varroa Destructor 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.

Praise for Varroa Destructor

Varroa Destructor taps the pressures of technology, boredom and isolation in the city. Restless, neurotic and thoroughly modern, Rourke's poems are little bullets of urban living. If you're not careful, they'll stick in your throat." -- Tom Chivers