R E V E R S E
Re-verse I N T R O D U C E D BY F R E YA DA LY - S A D G R O V E
S E R M O N F R O M A B O M B S H E LT E R
The Poet: Ursula and I went to high school together in Wellington, and although she is based in Melbourne now she remains one of my closest friends. Writing, and especially poetry, has always been smack in the middle of our friendship. We first got to know each other co-writing a script for drama – I think it was something about two teenagers killing their best friend, or maybe that came later. At some point we started sharing our poems with each other, and half our lives later she is still usually my first reader, the person who I trust utterly with my work, and who trusts me with hers.
Instead, we will surrender ourselves to the predictive power of the omen, my friends, reducing the amount of punishment we will undergo in the next life’s new chamber of moneytexts be not afraid we will experience luxurious growth potential we will launch lifestyle blogs do not concern yourself with the rats, though often underestimated, they are full of design flaws, remember that bad moods are the author of all storms, fear is calumny, memorise a list of gratitudes, move to a glamorous european city, there will be rats no matter where you open your small business, wherever you desire to be there will be signs of the times, that is their nature, they will be manifest in weather events, party talk, the corner of god will appear just outside the frame of your short-term plans, be not afraid, we will make for ourselves the way, we will make for ourselves these graphs, we will submit to the minister for redemption, we will process, delay is natural, this polity is not conclusion, slip and rally, still the nibbling tooth, use the times wisely, reach the peak of self awareness, sagacity stands beyond, regard your social utility, reject the temptations of contempt, certain urgencies, god loves a technique of survival, the slippage of faith, be not afraid, stop taking shit from losers, be not
The Poem: Sermon From a Bomb Shelter appears in Ursula’s first chapbook, Noonday, from indie Australian publisher Puncher and Wattman’s imprint Slow Loris. The chapbook is filled with absolute bangers, but I chose to write about this one partly for bragging purposes – the title comes from something I said to her once. I was trying to express what her writing feels like to me – how she treats language with remarkable reverence, and how something huge and terrible is always looming behind it. She writes like it’s the end of the world, which, you know, it is. The poem doesn’t really have a beginning or an ending, it’s just a middle, like your walkie talkie has picked up a mysterious frequency that you’ll never be able to find again. It sounds like it could have been going since the beginning of time and will continue for the rest of it. I have two favourite lines: the first one is “the corner of / god will appear just /outside the frame of your / short-term plans” which feels thrillingly close to the bone as this hellish year draws to an end and a fresh one approaches. The other one is “stop taking shit from losers” – it feels to me like the whole poem focuses to a point here, like it turns its face to look at me directly and it’s giving me such a wink. Ursula captures the constant ache of fear that we all live with now on our burning world, but she slips you a bit of power with it. She’s like your personal trainer for the apocalypse.
By Ursula Robinson-Shaw From Noonday
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