“I can see your panties”: An Interview with Lauren Ireland

I heard Lauren Ireland’s poetry for the first time at a reading she gave at the Montague Book Mill a little over a year ago. She was the last reader of the night and, unlike the half-dozen poets preceding her who sat at a table to read their poems, Ireland stood up in front of the room in a silk dress and gave one of the most mesmerizing performances I had ever witnessed. “Thank you for breaking up with me in the park,” she said with such conviction. “Now I get to hate the trees.” I felt as though the energy in the room changed. Over time I’ve had the pleasure to read more of her work in journals like Absent, notnostrums, Sixth Finch, and Sink Review (who also printed a broadside of her poem “I Love Drugs”). Now Factory Hollow Press has just published her first chapbook, Sorry It’s So Small.

Titles can be deceiving. Sorry It’s So Small might refer to an apology from a lover who leaves something to be desired, anatomically. (The title can also be interpreted as a tongue-in-cheek admission on the size of the book itself, measuring 4

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