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 It is the first archival collection of uncollected early poems from Mark Pirie's folders, notebooks and unpublished manuscripts.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The collection remained unpublished until now.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).