The Break is a free, monthly writing program led by Kaveh Akbar, presented by the Alano Club of Portland and All Rise. The program will be focused towards people in or seeking recovery, and formerly incarcerated people, but is open to all and will cover a broad variety of themes.

Kaveh Akbar is a poet, teacher and the poetry editor for The Nation. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, New York Times, Paris Review, Poetry, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. His newest book, Pilgrim Bell, will be published by Graywolf in 2021; he is also the author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James 2017). Kaveh was born in Tehran, Iran, and teaches at Purdue University and in the low-residency MFA programs at Randolph and Warren Wilson Colleges.