Birthday profile

Lucie Brock-Broido

Lucie Brock-Broido, American poet (died 2018)

Born
May 22, 1956
Died
March 6, 2018
Zodiac sign
Gemini
Birth year
1956

About Lucie Brock-Broido

Lucie Brock-Broido born "Lucy Brock" (May 22, 1956 – March 6, 2018) was an American poet, widely acclaimed as one of the most distinctive and influential voices of her generation. Noteworthy for her work as a teacher, Brock-Broido served as a visiting professor of creative writing at Princeton University, the Briggs-Copeland Poet in Residence and director of creative writing at Harvard University, and as professor of creative writing and director of poetry at Columbia University. Throughout her career, she mentored multiple generations of new American poets, including Tracy K. Smith, Timothy Donnelly, Kevin Young, Mary Jo Bang, Stephanie Burt, and Max Ritvo. Brock-Broido's final collection Stay, Illusion, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2013 to widespread critical acclaim, and was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and The Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Award. Notices of her death in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker, praised her “brilliant nervosity,” “beautifully embroidered, fanciful language,” and the “formal rigor and a supernatural sensibility that placed her in the lineage of revelatory American poetic voices like Emily Dickinson and Sylvia Plath.” Brock-Broido's style is known for its unique and somewhat baroque syntax, which draws from the influences of confessional poetry and symbolist aesthetics. During her tenure she was awarded the Harvard-Danforth Award for Distinction in Teaching, the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Award, and The Jerome J. During her fellowship year, Brock-Broido lived in residency alongside fellow writers Cyrus Cassells, Alice Fulton, Cynthia Huntington, Neil McMahon, and Kate Wheeler, as she developed what would eventually become her first collection, A Hunger.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Lucie Brock-Broido was born

Lucie Brock-Broido was born in 1956. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1956

  • #1 song"Heartbreak Hotel" – Elvis Presley
  • Top movieAround the World in 80 Days
  • Top TV showI Love Lucy
  • Best-selling bookPeyton Place – Grace Metalious

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentDon Larsen pitches a perfect game in the World Series
  • Top headlineElvis Presley takes America by storm
  • Technology milestoneFirst transatlantic telephone cable (TAT-1)
  • Defining fadElvis Presley mania
  • Notable inventionHard disk drive (IBM)
  • World population2.82 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderDwight D. Eisenhower
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • Also wonPhiladelphia Warriors (NBA)
  • U.S. population168.1M

1956 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Lucie Brock-Broido's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19562026
Gas$0.30$3.45/gal
Average home$11,700$435,000
Average income$6,500$67,500
Minimum wage$1.00$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.50$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population168.1M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.