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Imagine, working through heartbreak, up late at night wondering about that person no longer by your side.

I lie motionless in my bed, 

save for the swipe of my finger

hoping to catch a glance of a stranger

 turned to a friend

a friend turned lover

a lover turned back to a stranger

silently waiting for sleep to take me away. 

That’s ‘Motionless,’ a poem by Telluridian Mat Zaremba, which is included in ‘Volume III’ of Poems for Ex Lovers, an anthology of anonymous works collected from a community of broken hearted writers flung across mountain towns in the West. 

The editor, compiler, and designer of this latest work is Emma Renly, who is based in the Pacific Northwest and here in the Four Corners region. Renly and Zaremba sat down with KOTO News to chat about this latest volume of Poems for Ex Lovers and the peripatetic community of writers who brought it about.

Emma Renly: So, ‘Volume I’ took place almost entirely in Moab, Utah, and then the second book took place in Telluride! And this is where Matt also came on to the project. 

KOTO: And Mat, was this your first foray into poetry writing? 

Mat Zaremba: Yeah, exactly. Writing these poems where you have heartbreak, or you have these pent up feelings was, for me, a purge: a cathartic letting go of everything that had maybe been pent up and built up. And then just moving forward. It was actually a really good release. It was nice. 

KOTO: Are you writing right now? Have you continued to write poetry? 

MR: No, I’m actually very happy right now. I have a loving girlfriend of almost a year and a half and I’ve tried to write happy poems, but it’s almost like I don’t want to lose or purge those feelings that I had when I was writing sad poems. So I kind of want to stay in the moment. I want to stay in the happiness and not lose that feeling.

KOTO: In this third book the community of writers is wider spread than in the first two editions. What ties all of these soul searching people together? 

ER: I think the common thread, other than myself, is that we all come from these very small, mountain, outdoorsy towns. Whether it be Telluride, whether it be Moab, Jackson Hole, Hood River, Bozeman…I think that leads to a lot of different experiences in terms of love and loss. 

We do live in these very extreme towns, and perhaps that also pulls out extreme emotions too. The pendulum swings quite strongly in one direction or the other, and I think like Matt was saying, you’re gonna see your ex or boyfriend around, and so I think the emotions are much more up close and you can’t ignore them. 

KOTO: Talk about the decision to keep these poems anonymous.

MZ: You’re reading the book, it’s kind of great. You attach yourself to the poem, you think of your own interactions with other people and feel ‘Oh this poem really resonates with me, even if I don’t know who wrote it….’ Because you start thinking about other people — interactions that you’ve had in the past.

KOTO: For all these heartbroken writers, what’s next for them? Is there more heartbreak? Is there a ‘Volume IV?’

ER: I absolutely want to do another book of collective work of anonymous poetry. But no more ex-lovers! This is the third book we’ve done — we’re over it! You mentioned, you know, soul searching and outdoor towns…and I’d love to look more into that question: why do we travel? What is home? Is it a place? Is it a person? Is it a community?

You can order a copy of this latest work, and prior editions, at sockeyepublishing.com or you can check one out at the Moab, Utah, Library.