Meet Amanda Maret Scharf & Hannah Smith | Poets & Collaborators

We had the good fortune of connecting with Amanda Maret Scharf & Hannah Smith, and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amanda & Hannah, what principle do you value most?
Our collaborations are grounded in a desire to play – play with language, play with form, play with process. When we began writing together, we were in the throes of graduate school (both working towards our own full-length poetry collections), and we needed a reminder that art can, in fact, be fun. We started this project with no intention of writing a book. We were hoping to simply play with collaborative language and art-making—and to ultimately spend time together. We began co-writing each poem through a series of one-line responses to each other. We considered our friendship, our own experiences with queer love, and our relationships to place and the environment. And as we collected these poems together, we noticed a third voice that rose from the narrative. Valuing playfulness over expectations allowed us to let go of control in real time and called for an openness to the element of surprise.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
From our perspective, most art, and certainly writing, is inherently collaborative – in terms of existing within traditions and histories, and being in conversation with other contemporary voices. We also collaborate in workshops and writing groups, in salons, and at literary readings and events. But often, the actual generating of the work (specifically in poetry) is solitary. It can perpetuate this idea of the singular author or creator. We’ve been curious about what might happen when pressure is put on that concept, when other voices are introduced to both the generative and editorial processes.

We have always been making up the process in real time, giving ourselves restraints that would continue to allow the image sets to experiment, the sonics to build melody, or for the narrative elements to complicate. Often we’d break the very “rules” we gave ourselves, and that pushed us to break rules in our individual writing practices as well. These constraints also required us to let go of the tight grip over “who said what,” giving way to a genuine melding of our voices. We now have poems that have found homes in literary magazines that also celebrate these shared values, and our first chapbook, Metal House of Cards, which is forthcoming with Finishing Line Press in 2024.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Realistically, we would spend 90% of our time in the car… this is Los Angeles we’re speaking about after all! It was actually in the car, stuck in traffic, where we first explored the possibility of collaborating. It’s a reminder that something beautiful can come out of liminal spaces.

So much of our process is drawn from exploring physical space and considering new narratives – voices that are different from the two of us alone. Conversations overheard in a bar, a word on a billboard, a turn of phrase from a book: our environment is filled with writing prompts. This is why often we choose to write in public spaces, where the elements are in constant flux.

We also both have family with deep ties and histories to the creative world that LA offers – spanning the film industry, visual artists, musicians, and fellow writers. Even if we work in one medium, we draw inspiration from the work people create across different art forms. And as writers, we’re naturally drawn to narrative; one thing we love about LA is the unplanned conversations that can fall into your lap. People love to share their stories in this place, and often it’s about taking the time to listen.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We’re so lucky to have been able to learn, explore, and grow with each other; but it is truly thanks to our MFA community that we continue to explore our relationship to collaborative writing. It was the ethos of our larger writing community in Ohio that encouraged us to experiment with new ways of making art. We have experienced so much creative inspiration in terms of being supported by other people who also value playing with language, and who truly celebrate each others’ successes. In many ways, this collaboration is not just between the two of us, but it is deeply informed by a larger spirit of poets, writers, and artists who have shared their time, energy, and words.

Website: hannahsmith.net | amandamaretscharf.com

Instagram: @hannahsmithyy | @am_scharf

Twitter: @han_smith2 | @am_scharf

Image Credits
Alice Berliner