Meet, Hannah Teasdale, the new Fenland Poet Laureate

Hannah Teasdale has only had a few weeks to get comfy in her new role as Fenland’s sixth Poet Laureate.

However, it is fair to say that the talented wordsmith is eager to dive in at the deep end and make the most of her year as Fenland’s premier poet.

“I’ve been keen to do stuff, Hannah told the Peterborough Telegraph, adding: “I have a number of commissions already.”

One of Hannah’s first goals will be to use her talent to help raise awareness of a Wisbech outreach initiative which aims to tackle rural homelessness across the region.

The 48-year-old believes the only way to take on such a task is to interact with the people who are directly affected by the issue.

“I don’t think it’s on for me to write about what I think about rural homelessness [so] I want to get as many participants involved so that they can get their opportunity to have their voice heard.”

This ‘hands-on’ attitude to creating impactful verse has characterised Hannah’s approach to poetry since her work was first published in 2013.

Over the years, she has deliberately shunned a distant, observational-type approach in order to work directly with a diverse range of outreach projects in order to generate poetry that feels truly visceral and personal.Indeed, the Birmingham native has won plaudits and nationwide approval for the often challenging work she has done to highlight sensitive issues like immigration, racism and domestic abuse.

“I don’t shy away from difficult subjects,” she admits.

"Raw, brave and hard-hitting”

Hannah’s approach and output has seen her garner ever-increasing acclaim from critics and fans alike, with many describing her poetry as “raw,” “brave” and “hard-hitting.”

One of Hannah’s favourite descriptions of her poetry style is:

“If Joanie Mitchell was at home putting a pizza in the oven then this is what she would write.”

While Hannah has spent much of her life in Birmingham and Bristol, she is now happily settled in Fenland.

The PGCE-trained poet is keen that, along with using verse to highlight the region’s social issues and celebrate local success, her role will enable her to embolden people here to become more creative and develop a greater love for the written word.

To this end, Hannah is hoping that she will get plentiful opportunities to visit local schools and inspire students who “just think of Shakespeare and then switch off” whenever the word ‘poetry’ is mentioned.

As a veteran of teaching students who quite often come into class with a ‘I can’t stand poetry’ mindset, Hannah is realistic about how to proceed.

“I don’t go in there with the ‘P-word’,” she says.

Hannah’s approach to getting schoolkids into poetry is characteristically visceral, encouraging pupils to collaborate and share their thoughts and feelings and all that their senses can report, then putting everything up onto a whiteboard.

“Before you know it, we’ve produced a really, really good poem,” she says.

While this innovation can be – and often is – hugely impactful, Hannah knows attitudes to poetry will only change en-masse when the educational output of schools becomes more reflective of modern Britain.

“Hopefully, the curriculum will catch up a little bit with contemporary poetry,” she notes, adding; “I think contemporary poetry has a huge role to play in the communication skills that we use.”

The importance of opportunity

Schools aren’t the only area where Hannah is hoping to make her mark.

“We should be making use of spaces in and around Fenland which aren’t being used to help get people more involved with poetry,” she says.

If the industrious wordsmith gets her way, we may well see museums throughout Fenland towns linked-up into what Hannah describes as a “regional initiative project.”

These venues will offer workshops where people who’ve always wanted to be creative in their writing can come, meet like-minded people and draw support and inspiration from published poets.

Though Hannah acknowledges this is likely to be quite a significant undertaking, she is confident it can be achieved.

“I think I’ve got enough experience to know I am capable of going out there and putting things together, bringing people together and producing things that people can feel really proud of themselves for doing,” she says.

Describing the role of Fenland Poet Laureate as “a joy,” Hannah says she will go above and beyond to try and share her love of verse.

“I will always go as far as I can to make every single person feel valued and heard,” she promised.

When asked about the kind of satisfaction she would like to feel at the end of her 12 month posting, the gifted articulator is, momentarily, lost for words.

After a rather extended pause, Hannah eventually falls upon the theme of opportunity:

“People have all the tools already within them,” she explains, “but sometimes they just don’t get the opportunity to explore.

“If people can have that opportunity; to explore sides of themselves that they never even realised were there then, that, for me; that’s satisfaction.”