Alicia Sometimes chats to performance poet and recent Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship recipient Candy Royalle.
The Official Bio
Candy Royalle is a performance artist and poet who fuses cinematic storytelling, poetry and unique vocal rhythms with confronting, political and heart-thumping content. She tackles topics ranging from sexual obsession to social injustice; illuminating the darker areas of the human psyche for her audiences. Few who see her can forget her intensity, her combustible blend of intellect, imagination and heart. Candy is currently recording her second album with Sloppy Joe called Frida People, a fusion of poetry and music, moving through sex and politics “like politics was sex and sex was art and art was politics and the three were the holy trinity of humanity”. It is due to be launched at the National Folk Festival in April.
My View
Candy Royalle is indeed poetry royalty. She illuminates on the stage and is ethereal to see onscreen. Lucky for us she has many of her pieces on the wonderful world that is the Web. Strong lyrical splendours like ‘Stories by Starlight’ are beautifully written and framed so cinematically. I catch myself reciting some of her lyrics: “Sometimes seeds sprout in the strangest places / My aortic potplant knows all about it.”
She has whimsy as well as fire. She is a philosopher and dreamer. Ms. Royalle is an educator too, giving workshops on boldly telling stories. The kids are in great hands…
Her View
I started falling in love with words when…
I realised no one was listening. That I was unheard and voiceless. So I lost myself in notebooks and found my voice through ink. Then I found it again on stage.
The first time I knew I was hooked was…
When I realised I was willing to give up any form of security (financial, emotional etc.) to pursue a life of poetry.
Poetry (or spoken word) means…
Freedom. Privilege. Responsibility.
Other poets I adore are…
Australian: Mark Tredinnick, Omar Musa, Scott Wings, Eleanor Jackson, Toby Fitch. Others: Suheir Hammad, Andrea Gibson, Mahmoud Darwish, Pablo Neruda, Sage Francis, Ursula Rucker.
I love the sounds of…
Clichéd but true: the ocean at night. I can hear it from my bed and I love to lay and listen to it every night before I fall asleep. It’s meditative and calming (which is handy because my mind is anything but calm). My fave sisters of funk and soul and R&B: Erykah Badu, Chaka Khan, Lauryn Hill, Nina Simone (and a couple of the boys too: Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder). They move me and make me want to move. The sound of my motorbike starting up.
If I could tell you one thing…
It would be that there is only one absolute truth: there are no absolute truths. If we subscribe to this idea we might stop trying to force our truths onto others who have their own. Try telling Space that Gravity is an absolute truth and you’ll know what I mean.
You can buy Candy Royalle’s words here.
Alicia Sometimes is an Australian writer, poet, musician, co-host of 3RRR’s Aural Text and a past editor and long-standing contributor of Going Down Swinging (co-editing issues No. 18-No. 23 and contributing to issues No. 14-No. 17 and No. 25-No. 29).
Photo by Nicola Bailey Photography