Hannah M. Teasdale
In 1976, Hannah was born in Birmingham where she was taught the Fine Art of poor decision making. 18 years later, she was ‘shot’ to the Soft- South-West where she put into practice all she had learned.
In recent times, now in Cambridge, she is ‘Mastering’ the Fine Art of unlearning.
Hannah now identifies as a work in progress; there’s no guilt, shame or inadequacy attached to ‘letting go’. This is Hannah’s third collection – a last-ditch attempt to learn from all those poor decisions.
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Hannah has just released her third poetry collection 'Indelicate Sundays' following on from her collaborative work with 'Thommie Gillow' 'Milked' a humorously melancholy perspective on motherhood, and debut collection 'Laid Bare'.
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Hannah Teasdale was awarded the title of Fenland Poet Laureate in March 2024.
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Indelicate Sundays
"Through a series of stark, vivid snapshots this sizzling, brave work doesn't just offer glimpses of Hannah's life, but instead leads us right to the depths of humanity. In true Teasdale form, Indelicate Sundays deals with the difficult head on, with unflinching and admirable honesty. Yet Hannah's turn of phrase is delicate and the poems are exquisitely crafted. Hannah's poems burn with white hot intensity and buzz with the undertow of yearning. The themes of fracture and loss circle the book, bleeding through every word, yet Hannah's unbreakable spirit and strength breathe life into the darkest of times and the book leaves you feeling uplifted. This poignant insight into a tortured life will leave you breathless and reeling and stirred to the very core." - Holly Winter-Hughes
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"Hannah packages her trauma, vulnerability and strength into perfectly fored punches, the likes of which, you don’t realise have landed, until you’re knocked out. Brilliant. "- Giovani Esposito
"Hannah Teasdale’s third collection of poetry charts a fractured life which starts when her mother announces they are leaving home. Leaving to a cold house with a ‘filthy’ bed a secret hobby of stealing things begins; ‘my first desire to take things that aren’t mine,’ but ‘I never take more than I feel owed.’ This start of a secret compulsive shame continues through teenage years into adulthood. The young girl feels lust when she looks at a photo of her grandfather as a young man then realises her knickers are wet when he burps after dinner. The adult woman keeps a score card of how long it has been that her lover hasn’t given her an orgasm and the mistress persuades her lover to get ‘an eye test’. Hannah’s poetry is surprisingly shocking but delicately direct. There are no happy endings. A relationship boils down to two facts; ‘We go to therapy. You take your pills’ and her child’s trousers smell of another woman's house. Life has become a ‘chaos of bent documents.’ She has become a mother who has left home and is crying for her lost child."- Dr Lucy English
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"If Anais Nin and Shane Meadows met at a bar to write prose and poems it may well end up like this book. An awareness of vulnerability is a strength and Hannah Teasdale expresses this with power and insight whilst creating an urban cinematographic vibe of working-class life without for one moment feeling sorry for itself or filing itself under a label. I also respected the straight talking yet structured poems like Glass Eyes and Untouched and how Teasdale doesn’t give a shit about avoiding the parallels of exploitation versus the innocence of a sexual and emotional awakening from child to adolescent to woman/human.". - Anthony Owen