Book Description
Janet E. Aalfs was the poet laureate of Northampton, Massachusetts from 2003 to 2005. Her work weaves poetry and martial arts dance in performing, teaching, and social justice activism locally, nationally and internationally. Collections of her poems are Reach (Perugia Press, 1999), Full Open (Orogeny Press, 1996), and Of Angels and Survivors (Two Herons Press, 1992).Thomas Sayers Ellis, author of Skin Inc.: Identity Repair Poems (Graywolf Press, 2010), has this to say about Bird of a Thousand Eyes. "The author does not tease or play games with the poetic toolbox. She is creatively honest, lyric and imagistic, and always gathering ideas and redefining the corners of perception. There are many styles and poetic containers here, all governed by the integrity of various ways of breathingthese lines, nearly, pluck themselves. It's hard to poetically combine wisdom and experience without sounding like the know-it-all master of simile and metaphor, but Aalfs does so in stanzas that stay open long after they break or close."
