One of the most popular of all English poets, Philip Larkin has come to represent all that is cynical, sarcastic and pessimistic about the English way of life. I was going to post his poem, 'This Be The Verse', but I shied away from publishing the f*** word on the blog: instead, you will have to click here to read that damning indictment of the human species. Alternatively, I have decided to share with you this slice of Larkinian misanthropy: 'Sunny Prestatyn', a poem about a billboard poster for a sunny, Welsh resort - which has been subjected to so much graffiti its message has been lost. In Larkin's view, we might all wish to find our own Sunny Prestatyn, but what we will inevitably be faced with is something far more grim: or, in other words, life is rubbish...and then you die. I promise to post a more cheerful poem next week! :)'Sunny Prestatyn'
by Philip Larkin
Come to Sunny Prestatyn
Laughed the girl on the poster,
Kneeling up on the sand
In tautened white satin.
Behind her, a hunk of coast, a
Hotel with palms
Seemed to expand from her thighs and
Spread breast-lifting arms.
She was slapped up one day in March.
A couple of weeks, and her face
Was snaggle-toothed and boss-eyed;
Huge tits and a fissured crotch
Were scored well in, and the space
Between her legs held scrawls
That set her fairly astride
A tuberous cock and balls
Autographed Titch Thomas, while
Someone had used a knife
Or something to stab right through
The moustached lips of her smile.
She was too good for this life.
Very soon, a great transverse tear
Left only a hand and some blue.
Now Fight Cancer is there.
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