Sunny Prestatyn by Philip Larkin

I did not think that Sunny Prestatyn was a particularly misogynistic poem. Sure, the woman in the poster seemed to be described in a very sexualised manner, with the rest of the beach "expanding from her thighs", but that was just the way that adverts would have genuinely been like. If anything, "breast-lifting arms" is just a further indication that sex sells, something that Larkin is critical of in other poems such as Essential Beauty. He suggests that it is deceitful advertising.
I think that the second stanza is little more than school boy humour. Although he disagrees with vandalising the poster, he finds the vandalism funny to a certain extent. The description of the graffiti is immature, suggesting that Larkin's views on the matter are similar. For example, it's very difficult to believe that someone who uses the phrase "cock and balls" is being 100% serious. It's quite easy to believe that Larkin is having a quiet little giggle at the cartoon penis scrawled over this woman. I find it hard to believe that this is especially sexist because the vandalism would have the same effect if it had been drawn on a man.

It could also be that whilst Larkin is having a little chuckle at how the poster has been defaced, he is criticising the actual vandals. To me, "huge tits" sounds somewhat ironic, like Larkin is using the lingo of the young people that would have vandalised it in order to make a bit of a mockery of them.
The final stanza (as always with Larkin) takes a much darker tone with an underlying message of violence introduced through the knife used to "stab right through" what is presumably a Hitler-style moustache. It kind of makes us think of rape.


He leaves us with the ambiguous last line "Now Fight Cancer is there". This could mean one of two things:

• Larkin is being literal. The poster got to tatty and was replaced by a cancer research poster.
• Larkin is suggesting that the vandals themselves are cancerous and  that we should take special measures to prevent that sort of thing from happening