Mr. Speaker, on June 10 I had the distinct pleasure to attend the outstanding day of celebration for our home made poet, Elizabeth Bishop.
We celebrated the life and work of Pulitzer prize winning poet Bishop in Great Village, Nova Scotia. Bishop was born in New England in 1911 and spent her early childhood in Great Village with her grandparents. Her experiences as a child in rural Nova Scotia influenced, in fact dominated, her prose and poetry with the theme that all people are home made.
Elizabeth Bishop died in 1979. However, her literary works grow and are ever more popular. She is classified in the top five modern poets and is taught in virtually every department of modern literature in universities throughout the world.
The Elizabeth Bishop Society is a rapidly growing international association with memorabilia in Nova Scotia and at Vassar College, Bishop's alma mater.
Today in the Parliament of Canada I salute the Elizabeth Bishop Society of Nova Scotia and the organizers in Great Village for recognizing her literary works.