Loud Music Makes You Drive Faster

Mark Blayney has won the Somerset Maugham Prize for Two Kinds of Silence. His second book Conversations with Magic Stones was profiled on BBC4 and his third book Doppelgangers is also published by Parthian. A regular performance poet and MC, Mark has been longlisted for the National Poetry Prize, is a National Poetry Slam finalist and a Johny Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry finalist. Loud Music Makes you Drive Faster is his first collection of poetry, an anthology of Mark’s spoken word performances.He has published stories and poems in Agenda, The London Magazine, The Interpreter's House, Poetry Wales, the deliquent, The Lonely Crowd, Wales Arts Review and others. His story The Murder of Dylan Thomas was a Seren Short Story of the Month. Many poetry placings in competitions include the Arvon Postcard Prize and the Hungry Hill Poetry Award (Ireland).

Loud Music Makes you Drive Faster is Mark’s first collection of poetry, an anthology of his spoken word performances. Surreal, playful and sometimes tender, these poems sit in the tradition of spoken word pioneered by Roger McGough, John Cooper Clarke and Hollie McNish. Robot train inspectors, static caravans and museum statues all get a voice, as well as Lionel Richie songs that didn't chart, a poem written backwards and the historical revelation that at Waterloo, Napoleon did not surrender. Along the way, there are musings on ageing, travelling, fatherhood, falling in love and falling out of love.There's a Ballad for David Dimbleby, Shakespearian football results and the week in Bee Gee news. And if you've ever wondered what happens when Philip Larkin goes on holiday, or what a haiku about cleaning products looks like – read on.Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, Mark is a UK National Poetry Slam finalist, a John Tripp Award for Spoken Poetry finalist and has been longlisted for the National Poetry Prize.