Interview with a Haiku Educator: Charlotte Digregorio talks to Benedict Grant

Today at New to Haiku, Charlotte Digregorio interviews Benedict Grant as part of her Interviews with Haiku Educators series.

Benedict Grant is an award-winning poet, Pushcart Prize nominee, and the author of two collections of haiku and senryu, both published by Red Moon Press: spirit level (2022), which was shortlisted for the Touchstone Distinguished Books Award, and winterizing (2024), which received an Honourable Mention for this award. His haiku have been published internationally, placed in several competitions, and have appeared in many annual anthologies. In 2025 he was selected for inclusion in A New Resonance 14: Emerging Voices in English Language Haiku.

Benedict, please tell us about how you came to write your first haiku collection, spirit level.

The writing of spirit level happened to coincide with a renewed interest among members of the haiku community about the subject of addiction, particularly alcoholism. In “Embracing the Moon: Haiku About Drinking” (Modern Haiku 51.3, Autumn 2020), Kristen Lindquist provided a survey of how alcohol has been depicted by poets such as Basho, Issa and Santoka through contemporary English-language haiku poets such as Jim Kacian, Stanford Forrester and Marlene Mountain. Kristen’s essay prompted a response from Robert Epstein entitled “Haiku Poetry and the Darker Side of Drinking”, which appeared on 31 January 2021 on your blog. Writing in his capacity as a mental health professional, Robert cautioned against the dangers of romanticising drinking, reminding us of the physical, emotional and psychological damage it can cause: “Ask anyone who has lived through the ravages of alcoholism and found their way into recovery”, he wrote, “not a single one would glamorize or glorify their alcoholic past.” Responding to Robert’s remarks, Kristen revealed that she had been inspired to write her essay because “alcoholism has closely touched my life” and that “something about the shared commonality of our experiences with alcohol, rosy or horrific, seems to lend itself well to haiku and senryu.”

Both of these essays, and the dialogue they generated, were of great interest to me at the time, because I was in the midst of composing spirit level, which deals with this subject matter. In the course of his essay, Robert asked a rhetorical question: “Perhaps those who have descended into the hell realm of dependency have not left much of a poetic record of that descent. Or, they may feel too humiliated or guilt-ridden to do so.” This was my intention in writing spirit level: to leave a “poetic record” of a descent into—and out of—dependency. For several reasons, haiku seemed an appropriate vehicle, not least of all because there is a spiritual aspect to haiku that is both healing and life-affirming. There was an educative aspect, too: I wanted my poems to shed light on the links between depression and alcoholism and, in so doing, promote a better, more nuanced understanding of them. I was also interested in how haiku might function therapeutically for the millions who are suffering from these afflictions or have been affected by them. “Poetry makes nothing happen”, wrote poet W.H. Auden. This is true in practical terms, but as Auden implies, in an emotional sense it does make things happen, and one of its functions is to let us know we’re not alone. “Only connect”, author E.M. Forster pleaded. Poetry—haiku—encourages that connection.

Can you recommend any educational resources about addiction that may help readers who struggle with it or their families who are impacted by it?

Thankfully, a wealth of information is available on the subject, in the form of online resources and textbooks. There are also memoirs, documentaries, and movies: the “addiction narrative” has become a genre in itself. The Big Book, which every member of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is given, documents the stories of many alcoholics. Canadian physician Gabor Maté’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (2008) offers unflinching insight into the lives of addicts. Maté calls for compassion. Recovery is by no means certain in the lives that he documents, but one thing is certain: there will be no hope of recovery without understanding.

Did you have any initial reservations about publishing spirit level?

I was anxious when submitting it for publication. To publish one or two haiku about depression and alcoholism in journals is innocuous, but a collection on the subject becomes a kind of statement and might be interpreted as a full-on, unfiltered confession, which it isn’t: the truth is complicated and subject to artistic considerations. Despite our more enlightened times, a great deal of stigma still surrounds the subject. Because of the harm addicts cause, not everyone wants to understand; many instinctively condemn—and are too quick to label. Addiction doesn’t define who a person is—this is one of the most important lessons to learn.

People often demonize addicts as being physically and/or verbally abusive; pathological liars; emotional parasites. But this doesn’t take into account the millions who have hurt no one but themselves, those who, to borrow a phrase from Thoreau, are leading lives of quiet desperation. Maté calls such people “hungry ghosts” because they are shadows of their former selves or shadows of the selves they could be. Many of these people are simply overwhelmed by what life has thrown their way, frightened by their responsibilities, and quietly, inexorably drowning. I’m not making excuses for negative behaviour, because I think that shame and guilt can assist recovery; but for every effect there is a cause, no matter how deeply buried in the history of the individual.

In deciding whether to publish, I took heart from a haiku collection that I hold in high esteem: Dee Evetts’ endgrain (1997), in particular the 10 haiku that he included in a section entitled “Notes from The Other Side“. These haiku, Dee says, were drafted during a “battle with extreme depression, brought on by a series of life challenges that at the time seemed overwhelming.” He describes them as “survival poems” and tells us that “assembling this sequence was a significant step in acknowledging and moving on from that time of crisis.” With spirit level, I was trying to do something similar: these haiku are my notes from the other side, and the book was an important step in acknowledging what had happened and moving on.

Can you specifically talk about spirit level and also tell us about your motivation in writing your second collection, winterizing? It appears that both collections would benefit those with addictions.

I wrote the poems in spirit level out of sequence, but over the course of a year a narrative began to emerge. For me, there was a need for narrative to help me make sense of what had happened, hence a collection that told a linear, chronological story. winterizing is a continuation of this story. For some haiku poets, “narrative” is a bad word: one shouldn’t tell; simply present. But this is to understate the importance of story to the human experience. Even haiku, for all of their minimalism, can contain the story of a moment, and together, limn a life. The challenge for a writer of haiku who chooses to put together a collection in a narrative fashion is to give equal weight to each poem: the haiku have to be strong enough to stand alone and simultaneously take their place within the overarching story.

As I worked on spirit level, I began to think about the best way of structuring a story in which I could examine depression and addiction in relation to the things that tend to shape many of our lives: childhood, family, marriage, parenthood. There were practical and aesthetic challenges. No one wants to read a collection of 70-odd poems about the ravages of alcoholism: that would be overkill. My solution was to present the subject obliquely: the majority of the poems don’t mention alcohol explicitly. While acknowledging the suffering it causes, I didn’t want to climb on a soapbox to moralize about its dangers, either: the so-called “moral of the story” is the story itself. It was important to me that spirit level not be an unrelentingly depressing reading experience, so there is humour, too. I value humour above many things in life and believe that we can find it even during the darkest times; indeed, it can be a lifeline.

The title of my collection is a triple pun that refers to the physical object used by carpenters and stonemasons, alcohol, and the human spirit. The liquid that’s used in a spirit level actually contains traces of alcohol: because of this, some builders refer to it as a “whisky stick”. The cover of the book depicts a spirit level on its side, the bubble of air trapped within, with the liquid levelling out at the top, suggesting a tall glass of alcohol ready to be emptied. As for the layout inside, I wanted it to reflect the difficulties of maintaining spiritual equilibrium while in the grip of depression and addiction. To that end, the book begins with the poems spaced apart on facing pages. As it progresses, the poems cross paths and separate, until finally, by the end of the book, they level out. The layout thus replicates the actions of a spirit level, the idea being that the human spirit seeks steadiness, but that it takes a few passes before it finally finds its centre. Anyone who has struggled with addiction can relate to this idea. The road to recovery is a slow, frustrating process, full of setbacks. What drives you on is the hope that life will eventually level out and you will be able to find meaning and purpose—which is what happens at the end of the book.

spirit level ends on a redemptive note, and winterizing continues that hopeful journey. Nevertheless, there are new challenges to face. Having beaten addiction, some people expect life to change overnight. It doesn’t work that way. Accordingly, many of the poems in winterizing reflect a sense of apprehension: they try to find solace in the natural world, but often, it’s not enough to banish doubts and fears. In this book, I found myself broadening my range, addressing the state of the country and the world at large. As with spirit level, I think this impulse originated in my need to connect with readers on an emotional level. In winterizing, I was seeing myself not only as an isolated individual struggling with his personal problems, but as part of a larger collective struggling with theirs.

Please give us some samples of the haiku in your books, and speak to how they relate to the causes and effects of addictions.

The effects of addiction on the self and others are obvious; the causes, less so. We can identify the whats easily enough; but unless we identify the whys, the process of recovery and healing can’t begin. What’s missing? What’s broken? What is the alcoholic really thirsting for, the thing for which alcohol has become a replacement? For many people, those whys, those causes, often lie in childhood. The following poems explore this subject:

black and blue remembered hills

schooldays
an early morning lesson
that R is for rain

asking mum
what mortal means
summer clouds

to love
honour and obey . . .
bursting bubbles

hearing them fight
as the first flakes fall . . .
winterizing

What are some of the other things that might contribute to addiction?

Many things contribute to addiction, and some people are more susceptible than others. For me, it was a combination of factors both personal and circumstantial, which converged during a period when I was under a great deal of emotional, psychological and financial pressure. Dee’s description of his experience resonates with me: a “battle with extreme depression, brought on by a series of life challenges that at the time seemed overwhelming.” One of the greatest challenges was parenthood. I was 45 when our first child was born, and by the time I turned 50, we were a family of five. I was overwhelmed by the responsibilities. I wanted to chart this experience as honestly as I could in spirit level, so I was careful to avoid sentimentality, which is a trap that many fall into when writing haiku about children (and, indeed, haiku more generally). In the endorsement that he wrote for spirit level, Dee drew attention to this, so I think I succeeded: “I can think of no other haiku poet who has written about children with such unsentimental assurance.” I wanted to show how parents who love their children unconditionally are still prey to practical factors that can send them into a spiral of sleep-deprived depression, seeking a balm for the anxiety. Of course, it’s also true—and this is one of the great ironies of being a parent—that what you think is going to kill you is the very thing that will save you. I wanted to address that truth, too.

first pregnancy
never so conscious
of the cold

one small step
beyond your crib
centre of gravity

Halloween
a few more demons
to keep me company

life support
these little arms
around my neck

Does depression often lead to substance abuse?

The two often go hand in hand, but the nature of the relationship is such that it’s difficult to say which one “leads” to the other. We’ve come a long way in our understanding of both subjects, but we are still, I feel, less forgiving about addiction, despite the fact that they feed from each other, creating a vicious circle.

dusk
the shadows begin
their itinerary

brow of the hill
the shape that a home takes
against the stars

The following poems draw on one of the sayings that is often heard in AA: “One drink is too many, a thousand not enough.” Earlier, I described spirit level as charting a journey “through” alcoholism, but even in full remission, I don’t think one is ever through with it conclusively; one moves forward, a day at a time, trying to avoid potential triggers.

one tiny sip
of never enough . . .
sickle moon

treading water
at the open bar . . .
infinity pool

What are some more truths and consequences of addictions?

Looking back on his alcoholic experiences, writer and teacher Raymond Carver had this to say: “It’s strange. You never start out life with the intention of becoming a bankrupt or an alcoholic or a cheat and a thief. Or a liar.” Being brutally honest with yourself is a crucial first step on the road to recovery: until you take that first step, dishonesty can become habitual. The lies grow bigger and bigger and will eventually surface no matter how you try to hide them:

that little white lie leviathan

When people are under the influence, they find themselves doing things they wouldn’t have thought possible; sometimes, it’s hard to recognize yourself. Here is a blackly humorous take on that idea:

my sunny disposition unmarked grave

Admitting you have a problem is crucial, but it may be too late to repair the damage to a relationship:

the open door admitting leaves

How can rehab help level the spirit?

A closeness and camaraderie can develop, that is built on honesty and a complete lack of pretence. It’s a powerful thing to experience––another form of education. Of course, there are ups and downs. You go there hoping you’ll change back into the person you once were, that better version of yourself:

i wasn’t always like this butterfly

There are times, however, when pessimism gets the upper hand:

every cloud has a silver strikethrough

Resistance, impatience and skepticism are often part of the experience of counselling in rehab. The following play-on-words expresses a desire for privacy in the face of analysis and therapy, and is also a personal (and, I hope, humorous) reaction against the cult of mindfulness, which, however well-meaning, is sometimes thought to be a cure-all:

mindyourownfulness

How do you deal with recovery in spirit level?

Even during recovery, it’s not always possible for things to go back to the way they were, but relationships can be salvaged:

the crack of dawn we slip through

late-flowering love
an almost-forgotten poem
accepted

As I mentioned earlier, the process of recovery is slow, scary, full of setbacks. But the following poem expresses one of the changes that can occur if you manage to maintain sobriety for a significant period of time:

six month mark
the rain starts falling
differently

When recuperating after a prolonged illness, we often experience a renewed sensitivity to the sights and sounds of our surroundings and a need to reconnect with the natural world. Recovering addicts feel this tenfold. In this poem, the rain isn’t really falling differently, of course; the speaker is simply perceiving it differently, and rejecting its negative associations. Before they leave rehab, addicts are told not to expect too much too soon: just as we can’t stop the rain from falling, bad things won’t stop happening just because we’re clean and sober; what matters is how we respond to those bad things when they do happen. Sobriety enables us to maintain equilibrium, keep our spirits level, stop searching for illusory worlds and instead, try to celebrate the one we have. As Thoreau writes in a passage from Walden that I used as an epigraph for spirit level: “I prefer the natural sky to an opium-eater’s heaven . . . who does not prefer to be intoxicated by the air he breathes?”

Would you recommend the writing of haiku to anyone with addictions? Would you teach it to those with addictions?

My writing of haiku coincided with my recovery, but only by chance. That said, I think that the concentration and craft that I expended in composing spirit level—and the confidence it gave me—helped quicken the healing process. With respect to my recommending haiku to those suffering from addiction: insofar as haiku promote the virtues of clarity and simplicity, it would be valuable for those whose lives have been confused, darkened and muddied by addiction. Nevertheless, I think the idea would meet with resistance and cynicism initially, because the other needs of addicts are too pressing. The educator would need to make regular visits to rehab centres and other suitable venues. It would require an open mind, patience, and the ability to build trust. If one intends to teach workshops on the actual writing of haiku in such venues, the results would likely be of little artistic value; it would be primarily therapeutic. But that is valuable in itself.

Thank you, Benedict, for writing your books and for providing us with many insights on addiction.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my poems, Charlotte. If my writing helps others in any way, I’m grateful.

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