By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)
Philip Larkin wrote ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ in 1962, and the poem was published two years later in his collection The Whitsun Weddings. One of a series of poems from that volume which treat the world of advertising and consumerism – see also ‘Essential Beauty’ and ‘The Large Cool Store’ – ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ uses the example of the holiday poster to explore and analyse our attitudes to advertising. You can read ‘Sunny Prestatyn’ here; below is our analysis of this comically dark, and darkly comic, poem.