Alexander Levering Kern

Alexander (he/him) is a poet, editor, Quaker educator, university chaplain, and interfaith organizer. His work appears in publications such as Spiritus, About Place Journal, Georgetown Review, Soul-Lit, Spare Change News, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and in anthologies from Tiferet, Meridian, Pudding House, and Ibbetson Street. He is founding co-editor of Pensive: A Global Journal of Spirituality & the Arts (www.pensivejournal.com) based at Northeastern University, where he also serves as Executive Director of the Center for Spirituality, Dialogue, and Service. Editor of the anthology Becoming Fire: Spiritual Writing from Rising Generations, Alex has served and learned alongside communities around the world, including post-earthquake Haiti, post-apartheid South Africa, northern Nigeria, the Middle East, rural Honduras, Hiroshima, Brazil, Ferguson, Missouri, and the Arizona-Mexico borderlands. His family makes their home in Somerville, Massachusetts and Chebeague Island, Maine, homelands of the Masachusett, Pawtucket, Wampanoag, Nipmuc, and Wabanaki peoples.

A Sit-In, Hours Before the Iraq War Began

by Alexander Levering Kern | May 18, 2019 | Poetry

Iraq war protestors. Feb. 15, 2003 JFK Federal Building, Boston, March 2003 After days of drums, chanting, and frightened planningwe sit, quiet, on a scab of concrete,blocking the spinning doors of war.My animal eyes fix on the officer’s belt,quick breath awaiting his...