Bottle of Armour: Early Poems/Lyrics 1992-93
Mark Pirie started to write the poems in Bottle of
Armour in 1992 (when he was 17). It is the first archival
collection of uncollected early poems from Mark Pirie's folders,
notebooks and unpublished manuscripts. Originally, he had titled it
Informing the Tabula Rasa and had presented it to his
father for his birthday in June 1993. Afterwards, he revised it and
added more poems retitling it Bottle of Armour. It shows
Pirie's initial impetus was for rhyme, before he moved towards more
experimental, surreal and post-modern American forms. The
references to God and Satan throughout come just as much from the
influence of Heavy Metal lyrics as they do from The Bible, Milton's
Paradise Lost and the English tradition.
The collection remained unpublished until now. Mark revised and
collected it for the first time in its present form in January 2008
as an archival limited edition of his earliest work published by
Original Books (not meant for commercial release).