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Grief & Happiness
"I Still Share Cosmic Jokes With My Dead Best Friend": Poet Sarah Hanson on Grief That Never Goes Away
Ep. 414
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If you've ever wondered whether grief is something you get over — or simply learn to carry — episode 414 of the Grief and Happiness podcast is for you. Poet and survivor Sarah Hanson reframes grief not as something to be fixed, but as a scar that proves you survived — and shares why still sharing "cosmic jokes" with her late best friend is one of grief's greatest gifts.
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
(00:52) Sarah's journey as a poet and trauma survivor
(01:41) Why trauma made poetry the only way to tell her story
(03:10) How to tell hard stories without re-traumatizing your reader
(04:29) Why everyone is grieving — and why forgetting that matters
(07:56) Why people fear talking about grief — and why they shouldn't
(08:41) Sarah's honest guide to navigating early
(12:46) Cosmic jokes and staying connected to those we've lost
(15:01) Why the most meaningful objects left behind are never the obvious ones
(19:57) Why getting grief down on paper — even imperfectly — helps
(22:20) The power of haiku for overwhelming feelings
(25:12) How joy quietly grows back in the grief garden
(29:06) Fragmented memory, complex PTSD, and the power of writing it down
Sarah Hanson is a Minneapolis-based author, poet, and truth-teller whose work sits at the intersection of trauma, resilience, and the ongoing journey back to oneself. Her debut memoir-in-verse, Conjuring the Hurricane: The Best Way to Save Your Life Is Any Way You Can (April 2026), weaves together stories of domestic violence, childhood trauma, grief, and hard-won healing — earning praise from Elizabeth Gilbert, among others. A graduate of the University of Chicago with a Master of Arts, Sarah writes with the candor of someone who has walked through the storm and wants to show others the way out.
In this episode, Sarah brings the perspective of a survivor and poet to a conversation about grief, healing, and the transformative power of writing. She explains why she chose the nonlinear structure of poetry over traditional memoir — trauma fractures memory in ways that resist linear storytelling, and the form allowed her to honor emotional truth without getting tangled in factual precision. She also offers a tender reframe of healing: rather than expecting to recover as though the wound never happened, she encourages listeners to understand they will heal with the scar — carrying both the proof of survival and the new self built around it. Sarah and Emily find deep common ground on journaling and poetry as grief tools, with Sarah championing longhand writing and poetry as particularly accessible mediums for people in pain.
Connect with Sarah Hanson:
Book: Sarah Hanson - Conjuring the Hurricane
Let's Connect:
The Grief and Happiness Alliance
Book: Emily Thiroux Threatt - Loving and Living Your Way Through Grief
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