Who is Stephen Vincent Benet

Stephen Vincent Benét (July 22, 1898 – March 13, 1943) was an American poet, short story writer, and novelist. He is best known for his book-length narrative poem of the American Civil War, John Brown's Body (1928), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, and for the short stories "The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) and "By the Waters of Babylon" (1937). In 2009, Library of America selected his story "The King of the Cats" (1929) for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American Fantastic Tales edited by Peter Straub.Life and careerEarly lifeBenét was born on July 22, 1898 in Fountain Hill, Pennsylvania in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania to James Walker Benét, a colonel in the United States Army. His grandfather and namesake led the Army Ordn...
Read Full Biography

---

Stephen Vincent Benet Poems

• Campus Sonnets: 1. Before An Examination
  The little letters dance across the page,
  Flaunt and retire, and trick the tired eyes;
  Sick of the strain, the glaring light, I rise
  Yawning and stretching, full of empty rage ...
• Campus Sonnets: 3. May Morning
  I lie stretched out upon the window-seat
  And doze, and read a page or two, and doze,
  And feel the air like water on me close,
  Great waves of sunny air that lip and beat ...
• Colors - For D. M. C
  The little man with the vague beard and guise
  Pulled at the wicket. "Come inside!" he said,
  "I'll show you all we've got now -- it was size
  You wanted? -- oh, dry colors! Well" -- he led ...
• The Hemp - A Virginia Legend
  The Planting of the Hemp.
  
  
  Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas ...
• Campus Sonnets: 2. Talk
  Tobacco smoke drifts up to the dim ceiling
  From half a dozen pipes and cigarettes,
  Curling in endless shapes, in blue rings wheeling,
  As formless as our talk. Phil, drawling, bets ...

Read All Poems

---

Stephen Vincent Benet Quotes

• We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
• Life is not lost by dying life is lost minute by minute, day by dragging day, in all the thousand small uncaring ways.
• Honesty rare as a man without self-pity, kinders as large and plain as a prairie wind.

Read All Quotes

---

Comments about Stephen Vincent Benet

• Ralphgailteamtp: dreaming men are haunted men. -stephen vincent benet starmagiclounge withralphgail
• Tara_parody: “americans, what are americans? …………….. but i don’t know—i do not really know. i think it must be something in the blood. perhaps it’s only something in the air…” stephen vincent benet western star
• Margaretkatui32: as for what you're calling hard luck - well we made new england out of it. that and codfish.,stephen vincent benet,america, americans,
• Jeremy_boypoet: dedication by stephen vincent benet
• Solommsolo1: dreaming men are haunted men. -stephen vincent benet maymay born to slay

Read All Comments