John Brown's Body

About “John Brown's Body”

John Brown's Body is an American epic poem written by Stephen Vincent Benét in 1928. The poem's title refers to the radical abolitionist John Brown, who raided the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859. The work covers the history of the American Civil War. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1929. Benét wrote the poem while living in Paris after receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1926.