Janet Elizabeth Aalfs (born August 14, 1956) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

martial artist Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; and the preserv ...

. 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 A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ...

Northampton, Massachusetts The city of Northampton is the county seat of Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of Northampton (including its outer villages, Florence and Leeds) was 29,571. Northampton is known as an acade ...

from 2003 to 2005.

Life and work

As a 13-year-old, Aalfs wrote her first poem, and began focusing on her writing practice. Her father (1922–2001), a minister, is credited with teaching Aalfs about the

Civil Rights Movement The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...

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 New Bedford (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ) is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts, Bristol County, Massachusetts. It is located on the Acushnet River in what is known as the South Coast (Massachusetts), South Coast region. Up throug ...

, read and found inspiration in ''

Sisterhood is Powerful ''Sisterhood Is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings from the Women's Liberation Movement'' is a 1970 anthology of Feminism, feminist writings edited by Robin Morgan, a feminist poet and founding member of New York Radical Women. It is one of the f ...

'', and had her poems published by the women's center at

Southeastern Massachusetts University The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth (UMass Dartmouth or UMassD) is a public research university in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. It is the southernmost campus of the University of Massachusetts system. Formerly Southeastern Massachusetts Un ...

. During her first year at

Hampshire College Hampshire College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was opened in 1970 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges ...

, in 1974, she joined the women's center and registered for

women's studies Women's studies is an academic field that draws on feminist and interdisciplinary methods to place women's lives and experiences at the center of study, while examining social and cultural constructs of gender; systems of privilege and oppress ...

classes at

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medica ...

, which shared classes with Hampshire. While still in college, Aalfs

came out of the closet Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation, or gender identity. Framed and debated as a privacy issue, coming out of ...

as a

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

. She would go on to get her

Master's of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admini ...

degree from

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Supervision system, Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sara ...

. Shortly thereafter she founded 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 Martial arts are codified systems and traditions of combat practiced for a number of reasons such as self-defense; military and law enforcement applications; combat sport, competition; physical, mental, and spiritual development; entertainment; a ...

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. 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 karate, is an eclectic martial arts system developed by Robert Trias (1923–1989), reportedly the first Hispanic to teach a form of karate in the mainland United States, who opened his public first dojo in 1946 in Phoenix, Arizona. History ...

, a sixth-degree black belt in

Modern Arnis Modern Arnis is the system of Filipino fighting arts founded by Remy Presas as a self-defense system. His goal was to create an injury-free training method as well as an effective self-defense system in order to preserve the older Arnis systems. ...

, and is a Jian Mei Chief Instructor of

tai chi Tai chi (), short for Tai chi ch'üan ( zh, s=太极拳, t=太極拳, first=t, p=Tàijíquán, labels=no), sometimes called "shadowboxing", is an neijia, internal Chinese martial art practiced for defense training, health benefits and medita ...

and

qigong ''Qigong'' (), ''qi gong'', ''chi kung'', ''chi 'ung'', or ''chi gung'' () is a system of coordinated body-posture and movement, breathing, and meditation used for the purposes of health, spirituality, and martial-arts training. With roots in ...

."Martial art classes provide confidence and defense training"
masslive.com; accessed January 20, 2018. Between 2003 and 2005, she served as the

for Northampton, Massachusetts. In 2013, she received the Leadership and Advocacy in the Arts Award from the Center for Women and Community, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

References

External links

"Janet Aalfs teaches fifth-graders about the power of words"
from the ''Daily Hampshire Gazette''. {{DEFAULTSORT:Aalfs, Janet 1956 births 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers American female martial artists American women poets Hampshire College alumni American lesbian writers American LGBT poets LGBT people from Massachusetts LGBT people from New York (state) Living people Municipal Poets Laureate in the United States People from New Bedford, Massachusetts Sarah Lawrence College alumni Writers from Massachusetts Poets from Massachusetts

Life and work

Further reading

References

External links