Connecting through the poetry of raw emotion

The program for the Sydney Writers festival this week is diverse, taking in performance poets, fiction writers, bloggers, historians and journalists.

Sydney poet Candy Royalle – who is appearing at three events on Saturday – first became acquainted with her art form when she stumbled across the Poetry Night at the Friend in Hand Hotel in Glebe when she was 18.

“It was very noisy with lots of drunk people and the poets would get on stage and bare their souls to a very loud audience. For some reason, that appealed to me and I felt like I had found my phone,” Candy says.

She says the driving force for her performances is the connection her poetry creates with her audiences.

“People have hugged me and cried after a show because they have really responded and related to my work. That, for me is the most powerful thing because I get to have these experiences with people that otherwise I wouldn’t get to meet. They hear something that they relate to that I have been able to put into words, something they haven’t been able to, for example,” Candy says.

“Some of my favourite artists they articulate or express something that I haven’t been able to, and that’s why I like them, because through them I find my voice, and I think it’s the same for other people.”

While social media is, in Candy’s opinion, making us more disconnected than ever, performance poetry is an antidote

“It’s this sharing of human emotion. You get people into a room together and you are performing pieces that are raw emotion, that are talking about sexuality, politics, love, all those kind of heavy topics. And you do it in an environment where it’s showy but it’s real, and people feel that and they connect with that.,” Candy says.

“That’s what drives me, getting to share that, and then the audience hanging back and people sharing their stories and their experiences with me, it’s one of the most beautiful things.”