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Walter Benton (1907—1976) was an American poet and writer.

Benton was born to Russian immigrant parents living in Austria. In 1913, the family left Europe for the United States during World War I. Benton held many odd jobs during the Great Depression, earning enough to put himself through Ohio University, where he graduated in 1934. He was employed as a social investigator by New York City and then served in the United States Army during World War II. After the war he returned to his job in New York City while pursuing a career as a writer. His prose was published in Yale Review, Saturday Review of Literature, Esquire, The New Republic, and several other publications.

His two books of poetry are his best known works. His book of poems addressed to "Lillian" was written in diary form and entitled This is My Beloved. It was published in 1943 and has become one of the best selling books of poetry.. This was followed by another book of love poems entitled Never a Greater Need that was published in 1948.

American poet and singer, Rod McKuen has said that his most romantic poetry was influenced by Benton's two books of poems.

Jazz musician Arthur Prysock read verses from Benton's book of poems against a jazz instrumental backdrop on his 1968 album, This is My Beloved.Other earlier recorded versions of the poems from This is My Beloved were by John Dall, Alfred Ryder and Laurence Harvey accompanied by Herbie Mann.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Walter Benton", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0