"Earlier this year I won the World Poetry Cup with this poem.... Basically, there's a dirty word in politics and we're not allowed to talk about it very much - that word is Palestine. And when we do it must be extremely tempered. I think that there are many reasons for that but I think that one of them is Islamaphobia which is rife at the moment for various reasons. I feel the need to say that I don't come from an Islamic family, though I do come from a Middle Eastern family; but I believe in standing up for humanity and putting a human face to the things that the media so readily makes grotesque."

"I am my grandfather's memories
of sunshine, streaming, through olive trees
of women.... "

Candy Royalle: Tasmanian Poetry Festival, October 2012