Lucie Brock-Broido

Lucie Brock-Broido was born on May 22, 1956, in Pittsburgh. She received her BA and her MA from Johns Hopkins University, as well as her MFA from Columbia University. Her books of poetry include Stay, Illusion (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013); Trouble in Mind (Alfred A. Knopf, 2004); The Master Letters (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995); and A Hunger (Alfred A. Knopf, 1988).

In a New York Times review of Trouble in Mind, Maureen N. McLane wrote:

Apprenticed to Wallace Stevens, from whose notebooks she takes the titles of several poems, she writes a sensual, sonically rich poetry, typified by the opening of “Spain”: “The god-leash leaves / Its lashes on the broad bunched backs / Of sacrificial animals.” This acoustic gorgeousness, along with her highly figurative cast of mind, creates a striking tension: her new theme is austerity, yet her means remain profligate.

Brock-Broido’s awards and honors included the Witter-Bynner Prize from the Academy of American Arts and Letters, the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award, the Harvard-Danforth Award for Distinction in Teaching, the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize from American Poetry Review, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Brock-Broido has taught at Bennington College, Princeton University, and at Harvard University, where she served as the director of the creative writing program and as the Briggs-Copeland poet. She was also the director of poetry in the writing division of Columbia University’s School of the Arts. She divided her time between New York City and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Lucie Brock-Broido died at her home in Cambridge on March 6, 2018.