“Self-determination means we can achieve, conceive, a world where empathy and compassion are ingrained actions.” -Candy Royalle, Lebanese-Palestinian Australian poet (R.I.P. 2018)
This quote comes from one of Candy Royalle’s poetry videos, called “Love,” in which she has her dreads shaven before starting chemo for ovarian cancer. Unfortunately, cancer later claimed her life. While she uttered these words 11 years before the Israeli government’s current starvation of the Gazan people, she could’ve very well spat the same rhymes today.
From her website bio:
Candy Royalle has performed alongside many of the greats including Ursula Rucker (who said “Candy Royalle is all at once fragile, powerful, raw, sensitive, beautiful, unflinching and honest. She, her spirit and her work, will change you”) Shane Koyczan, Sarah Kay, Phil Kay, Rives, Anis Mojgani and Holly McNish to name a few. A festival curator once described Royalle as “an act you remember for years” and the Austin International Poetry Festival Chair stated Candy had “…changed the face of poetry in Austin, forever”. Few who see her can forget her intensity, her combustible blend of intellect, imagination and heart.
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