Benét was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. A graduate of Yale University, he was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in 1944 for "Western Star", an unfinished narrative poem on the settling of America.
His brother, William Rose Benét (1886–1950), was a poet, anthologist and critic who is largely remembered for his desk reference, The Reader's Cyclopedia (1948).
It was a line of Benet's poetry that gave the title to Dee Brown's famous history of the destruction of Native American tribes by the United States: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.
Benet was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the son of a professional soldier with a deep interest in American history.
Benet was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship in 1926, and the Benets moved to Paris, where he planned to use this financially secure time to write a long poem inspired by his growing involvement in the exploration of American legends and history.
Although Benet called it a "cyclorama," it is generally regarded as an epic poem organized around sketches of fictional and historical characters through whom he depicts the vast conflict of the Civil War.
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