Bruce Beaver was born and educated in Manly, Sydney. He worked as a surveyor's chainman, farm labourer, radio program arranger, clerk, fruit picker, proof reader for the New Zealand Herald (1960-62) and freelance journalist. From the age of seventeen, he was treated several times for manic depression, an experience that would be examined in one of his best-known works.

Beaver published his first volume of poetry in 1961 and followed this with several more volumes, but it was his Letters to Live Poets (1969) that attracted most attention, winning several awards. A series of confessional poems arranged as a livre composé, Letters to Live Poets influenced the style and direction of much Australian poetry in the early 1970s. While his later poetry has not attracted the same attention as this volume, he is widely admired for his experimentation and skill with the forms of prose-poetry and confessional poetry. Furthermore, his role as adviser and contributing editor to Poetry Australia had a significant influence on the "New Australian Poetry" of the 1970s.