MARTYR Poetry Compendium, Volume One - "SUFFERING IN THE DARK"
Composed/Compiled/Written by BLACKBIRD, BLEEDING SHADOW, and MORLOCK of MARTYR

July 1995 - January 1996
Released at Montreal on January 5th, 1996


Dear Readers and Poets,

	Welcome to the world's first cyberspace poetry group composition pack. In the 
following documents, I have enclosed my complete portfolio of poetry since August 1995 
for the January 1996 release of Martyr Poetry Compendium, Volume One.
	First, I should explain how all of this came to be. The story thus far begins back in 
November 1994 and progresses to the present. Right now, I am a CEGEP student in Social 
Science at Dawson College who happens to write poetry in my spare time as a hobby. In 
the beginning, my poetry was a very private, personal affair to me. I never thought my 
writing, whether prose or poetry, was any good, until I showed my girlfriend at the time 
some of my works.
	Upon reading them, she was favorably impressed and persuaded me to publish 
them, but humility still held me back. However, the positive feedback I got encouraged 
me to continue writing and gave me the courage to show others and obtain a second 
opinion from those wiser than I, such as my parents and my English teacher. My parents 
were surprised that I had hidden such talent from them for so long mainly because I had 
never demonstrated anything worth being proud of to them before. They encouraged me 
to explore my potential even further and helped with their useful criticisms and helpful 
pointers. In the end, this improved my overall outlook and allowed me to take things a step 
further.
	I handed my first attempt at serious poetry in as an important term assignment for 
English class, putting my marks at risk on the slim chance that my teacher would love it and 
endorse me. Sure enough, my hard work and dedication paid off, for I returned to class 
the next day to discover that I was marked 100% on that assignment. The teacher even 
commented that I should publish the poem in the school newspaper, but I refused 
because I felt the "Student Eye" was an irresponsibly written newspaper exclusively 
dominated only by the elite students. These so-called advanced and gifted students wrote 
boring, typical articles and poetry that didn't show an ounce of sincerity. Moreover, they 
rarely permitted those from outside their petty social circle to publish in the paper unless 
you reduced yourself to becoming their slave-dog. I was not about to kiss their feet simply 
for the "privilege" of putting my poem in their ditty paper.
	I continued to write more poems, straying even further from prose, and continued 
with new support to draw from my life experiences the inspiration necessary for composing 
good quality poems.
	As you can probably tell from reading them, I have a very distinct, neo-gothic style 
to the way I compose with a touch of manic depressive. This comes mainly from the fact 
that I am indeed a manic depressive. I don't mean to go on about my horrible life, but 
society hasn't exactly treated me fairly on many accounts. A lot of this resentment 
translates into misunderstood hatred toward all world religions, our political and economic 
systems, and our social system. This is all presented in an articulate, but gothic manner that 
sometimes suggests that there is hope and salvation for humanity, though not from a 
divinity, but rather from within ourselves.
	My constant obsession with gothicism has to do with my background and what 
prose influences I had as an early adolescent. DragonLance and Star Trek had a hand in 
making my poetry the way it is today, however I hope to eventually break the pattern and 
master other forms of poetry someday.
	What gave me the idea to put together a poetry pack stems from my love for 
tracked computer music (or wave music, as I prefer to label it). I figured if tracked 
computer music packs can be done, then so should poetry. After all, poetry and music 
share a lot in common. For one thing, they are both part of what is called "Fine Arts". Also, 
musical lyrics (though you'll never see any in tracked computer music for it is largely 
instrumental by nature) are often simply converted or modified poems. Therefore, this 
makes my project a logical endeavor, doesn't it?
	Of course, this idea was never going to get off the ground unless several 
coincidences and fate stepped in. At this point in time, starting a poetry group was a 
farfetched idea in the back of my mind. On July 20th of 1995, a miracle occurred in a 
chance discovery that someone else other than myself was posting poems, albeit in 
French, on a BBS I frequented often. I began to immediately start discussing with this new 
cyberpoet about my ideas for the group (which didn't even have a name or theme yet) 
and he became the vice-president of this newly formed group. The man's alias was 
Bleeding Shadow and he became instrumental in determining the group's future. We 
developed the theme: neo-gothicism, as well as the name Martyr. I chose to name it this 
because the main theme of our poetry tied in perfectly with the title of a fantasy short story 
I was working on before that time. Eventually, after much contribution from Bleeding 
Shadow, he had other obligations that forced him to abandon the group and I was left 
alone to deal with the turmoil of his passing.
	It wasn't long before Morlock entered the picture. He was another poet on the very 
same BBS, however only recently decided to post poetry in early September. I was the first 
to notice his raw talent and incorporated him into the group as my protg, in order to fill 
in the role Bleeding Shadow left behind as the innovative spark behind Martyr. Since then, 
he has contributed his works in a manner which can only be described as exemplary.
	The image of the group began to take shape finally as Morlock and I 
contemplated the purpose behind Martyr. The idea of a group constitution and the 
Internet as our desktop publishing medium were all our combined ideas. The goal of the 
group became "the preservation of the lost art of poetry..." and that brings me to the 
release of the Martyr Poetry Compendium, Volume One...
	Each poem is virtually months of work, although the rough draft is usually 
completed within the first two hours of composition. The refining process is what takes 
forever: changing sentence structure, substituting words through the use of a thesaurus, 
adding new passages, changing the presentation form, choosing the proper fonts to got 
with the mood of the poem, organizing a group of poems into a portfolio, etc. All of this is 
a LONG process, but the final product is usually something wonderful, unique, and 
dynamic. At least, I'd like to think so. I certainly hope you do as well, gentle reader, after all 
once you've read this far, there's no turning back now.

"Enjoy my poetry, face my reality..." - blackbird@myth.org


DEDICATIONS, GREETINGS, HONORABLE MENTION:
==========================================


	This poetry pack has been a half year in the making and during this long period, the walls
have been marred by the faces of those who inspired each of us to continue even when times were
fragile and spirits were weak. For this reason, these inspirational people are mentioned in the 
credits of our first publication.


<<< Blackbird wishes to thank the following for their support... >>>

* Zapper of Force Ten (F10) Music Group & The Apollo Project (TAP) Demo Group
* ShawnM of New Objectives in Sound Exploration (NOISE) Music Group
* Depth of USED Demo Group & PR Demo Group
* Dark Shadow of USED Demo Group
* Catherine Coghlan
* Justice of MARTYR Poetry Collective (MPC)
* MorlocK of MARTYR Poetry Collective (MPC)
* Bleeding Shadow
* Milou
* Justice's grandfather
* ARCADY Poetry Club
* SECRET SISTER Publications
* Elminster Sage
* Wacky Wizard
* Shawn Drisdelle
* my family, close personal friends, and fans (you know who you are!)


<<< MorlocK wishes to thank the following for their support... >>>

* Debbie :)
* FaxBoy
* Pentium Boy
* BusBoy (original alias: IdiotBoy)
* Kato (original alias: Cheech)
* CIRCLE OF ONE Poetry Group Members
* Blackbird of MARTYR Poetry Collective (MPC)
* fans of MorlocK everywhere !!! :)


<<< Bleeding Shadow wishes to thank the following for their support... >>>

* to my sister, Anne
* fans & friends :)


	Well, that's all for now. We welcome you to check out our works at our Internet WWW and FTP
sites and to mail us for comments/criticisms. From now until July 1996, MARTYR will be primarily
concerned with the release of our EXPRESSIONS e-zine and of the MARTYR Poetry Compendium Volume Two
due to be released in July 1996. We will be doing individual releases until then and you should find
our latest creations at our WWW site. Thanks for your support!

				- blackbird / bleeding shadow / morlock
