a brief history of july

‘a brief history of july’ is a chapbook in which Tares does not intend to recount the watermarked history of moments in his life. Rather, as he illustrates in one of his poems, Say Love, (not contained in this chapbook), even this collection revalidates the statement, “the boats i rowed the slow child i was/to what i have become/are shaped like memories”. Hence, he, rather, wants us to see his poetry (through the lens of such memories) as one in which survival is a maxim, not the history that informs the zest for it. For him: “that way we survive best because/scars too comport themselves with the light/that slips in & out of the night like the stars”. Our survival should come from them, not the setbacks they uplift.