The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Something Kindred by Nicole Tallman

This selection, chosen by guest editor Kirsten Kowalewski, is from Something Kind red by Nicole Tallman (Southern Collective Experience 2022).

On Reading Poems, I Now Sympathize With
Daughters Of Dead Mothers

For Freida Hughes

It’s hard to look at this picture of Frieda and not feel something tragic—
mother, father, brother dead,
one by oven, one by cancer, one by hanging.

It’s hard just to look at this picture of Frieda, with her menagerie
of pets, poems, and paintings.
Yes, I mean the Frieda with an e,

not Frida Kahlo.
Frieda Hughes, I want to buy one of your paintings

a green one
representing the joy of being able to work on my poetry
or something other creative.

Frieda Hughes, I want to eat all of your mother’s poems
and all of your paintings.

It’s hard not to look at Frieda and feel
something kindred—
us daughters of dead mothers.

It’s hard to look at Frieda and feel
something so protective,
to say to us through our mothers

There, there. You made it.

Nicole Tallman is the author of three collections: Something Kindred, Poems for the People, and FERSACE. She serves as Miami’s official Poetry Ambassador, Editor of Redacted Books, and Poetry Editor for South Florida Poetry Journal and The Blue Mountain Review. Find her on social media @natallman and at nicoletallman.co m.

Kirsten Kowalewski is the editor for online horror fiction review resource Monster Librarian. She has an MLS and a specialist certificate in school library media from Indiana University, has worked as a children’s librarian and elementary school media specialist, and is a lifelong reader.