First Death in Nova Scotia Commentary

This poem was included in Bishop’s third collection of poetry - Questions of Travel – in 1965. Bishop was in her fifties, and trying to come to terms with events in her early childhood. ‘First Death in Nova Scotia’ is an elegy for her young cousin Arthur (his real name was Frank) who died when Bishop was four.  The poem begins in a simple way. We visualize Cousin Arthur's wake through a child's eyes. It is winter in Nova Scotia, the parlor is cold. Elizabeth had a hard time figuring out how death really works we can see this because she calls the loon a “he” instead of it. I liked this poem because Elizabeth actually remembers the death of her cousin from when she was a four year old girl. I also like that she writes from the perspective of the little girl. This puts you in her shows and shows what she could have been possibly thinking  as a little girl seeing a dead body for the first time at such a young age.