Frederick Stern Bock was born in Newton, Iowa, on October 11, 1916. He received his B.A. from the University of Iowa in 1937 and returned to do graduate work in the Poetry Workshop in the 1950s. In 1955 he joined the editorial staff of Poetry in Chicago. He worked there until 1961, when he moved to New York City. Ill health forced him to return to Newton in 1979. He died there on January 9, 1981.

Bock’s poetry appeared in such magazines as The Iowan, The Nation, and the Yale Review. In 1961, his book of poems, The Fountains of Regardlessness, was published. He was working on another collection of poetry at the time of his death.