Stefanie Bennett was born in Townsville, North Queensland, the child of Vicki Curro-Piper, of Sicilian descent, and Harold Piper, an American serviceman descended from the Paugussett tribe. At his invitation she visited her great uncle Chief Big Eagle, Aurelius Piper Senior, in April 2002 and celebrated her 57th birthday at the tribal reservation in Trumbull, Connecticut.
Bennett followed her formal education with work in Townsville at her mother's hairdressing salons, then at United Packages, and for the Bush Children's Health Scheme. In 1964 she married Ray Bennett, but separated from him before the birth of her daughter Yvonne in 1965. In 1968 she left Townsville for Brisbane and later Sydney, and en route to a Women's Conference in New South Wales was involved in a car accident that caused lasting injury. In Sydney she worked with Saturday Club Poetry, the Khasmik series, and New Poetry magazine.
In 1974 Bennett returned to Townsville and set up Cochon Publishing. She returned to Brisbane as editor of the New Writing programme for the Kedron College of Advanced Education in 1978, but came back to Townsville as Writer in the Community for 1988, and joined James Cook University as a tutor for the Institute of Modern Languages.
Benettt has been a member of Arts Action for Peace, the Arts Target Sector Group (Amnesty International), and the Black Possum Publishing Co-operative. She has been publishing editor of Cochon International, Cochon Community Press, Cochon Poets Series, Khasmik Publications and Khasmik Quarterly. She has served as a member of council for the Poetry Society of Australia and as literature representative of Cave Press, New Zealand. She has read at the Adelaide Festival in 1972 and 1974, at Artists for Peace, Brisbane, in 1985, at BEMAC, Brisbane in 1985 and at many other public venues and occasions in Queensland and other states. In 1985 Bennett was Writer-in-Residence at Rockhampton Community Youth Support Scheme, The Dreammakers Writers Workshop Rockhampton, Emu Park & Maleny in 1987, Fellowship in 1988, Clarence 1990 and Maleny in 1991.
In 1977 Thomas Shapcott described Bennett as "perhaps one of the least recognized important poets of the new wave" in '70s Australian poetry, whose work had "some burning impulsion." Her earlier poems also delight in logopeia and typographical play, while voicing familiar poetic scorn for and alienation from the Establishment. Her poetry assimilates the international mid-century poetic pantheon, including Seferis and Salvatore Quasimodo, but, particularly in Symphony for Heart and Stone (2009), draws with power and focus on her Native North American and Sicilian heritages, while also engaging iconic subjects like Australian fauna.
Bennett has lived in Maleny and been involved with ecological activism there.
Australian Poetry Library Author Entry