Janet Aalfs

Janet Aalfs (born 1956) is an American poet and martial artist. She is a founding member of Valley Women's Martial Arts and the National Women's Martial Arts Federation, and founder and director of Lotus Peace Arts. She served as poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts from 2003 until 2005.

As a 13-year-old, Aalfs wrote her first poetry, and began focusing on her writing practice. Her father (1922-2001), a minister, is credited with teaching Aalfs about the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. By the age of sixteen, Aalfs had participated in assisting her mother in the founding of the women's center in New Bedford, Massachusetts, read and found inspiration in Sisterhood is Powerful, and had her poems published by the women's center at Southeastern Massachusetts University. During her first year at Hampshire College, in 1974, she joined the women's center and registered for women's studies classes at University of Massachusetts, which shared classes with Hampshire.

Sexual orientation

While still in college, Aalfs would come out of the closet as a lesbian. She would go on to get her Master's of Fine Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College. Shortly thereafter she would found a women's writing group, and eventually two lesbian writing groups: Calypso Borealis and the Tuesday Night Lesbian Writers Group. She also founded Orogeny Press, a publishing house for fiction and lesbian poetry. In 1978, Aalfs began practicing martial arts and became a founding member of Valley Women's Martial Arts and the Institute for Healing and Violence Prevention Strategies (VWMA/HAVPS) and the National Women's Martial Arts Federation.

2000s

Aalfs, founder and director of Lotus Peace Arts, has served as the director and member of the Leaders Group of VWMA since 1982.She holds a seventh-degree black belt in Shuri-ryū, a sixth-degree black belt in Modern Arnis, and is a Jian Mei Chief Instructor of Tai Chi and Qigong. Between 2003 and 2005, she served as the poet laureate for Northampton, Massachusetts. In 2013, she received the Leadership and Advocacy in the Arts Award from the Center for Women and Community, UMass/Amherst.She lives and works, with her partner, in Northampton.

Aalfs' poetry process begins in the morning, writing poetry at her kitchen table. For several hours she might work, writing longhand. After completing something she's satisfied with, she then types her poetry out on a computer, proceeded by additional hand editing. Her subject matter varies, ranging from martial arts to family, relationships, nature, love, and violence against women. Kathy Goos, of the Northampton Arts Council, described Aalfs' poetry as having a "musical quality." Her work has also been inspired by Elizabeth Bishop, Adrienne Rich, Walt Whitman, Lucille Clifton, Stanley Kunitz, among others. As poet laureate of Northampton, she was paid $1,000 a year.