Larry Beckett (born April 4, 1947) is an American poet, playwright, songwriter, musician, translator, and literary critic.

Beckett was born in Glendale, California, and lived in Los Angeles, Downey, and Anaheim, where his father was an English and speech teacher and his mother worked in the career counseling industry.

A high school English teacher helped change his mind from thinking he wanted to be a mathematical physicist, to realizing he was a writer.

Beckett read two of his 1966 poems, Found at the Scene of a Rendezvous that Failed, and Birth Day, on the Rhino Handmade reissue of the album Tim Buckley,[6] to which he contributed liner notes, including the lyric “1, 2, 3.”[7] He recited Song to the Siren and an essay on its composition on the MVDvisual DVD Tim Buckley: My Fleeting House.

[12] Beat Poetry, with twelve central San Francisco renaissance poems and Beckett’s essays on them reconsidered as literature, was published in 2012.

[22] The lyrics Beckett wrote, such as "No Man Can Find the War", "Morning Glory" and "Song to the Siren", were characterized by their literary tone.

Beckett continued his working relationship with Stuart Anthony of The Long Lost Band in 2018, releasing full-length albums One More Mile,[27] Love & Trial,[28] Mirabeau Bridge,[29] [30] and An Afternoon of Poetry & Music.

The album includes the lost 1966 Beckett/Buckley song "Found at the Scene of a Rendezvous That Failed" with Beckett on piano and Buck on bass.