The Vines To A Grape: Letters to a Rapist

The Vines of a Grape is a raw, unflinching collection of diary entries and letters written in verse-direct confrontations with the rapist, with the body, with the Philadelphia communities, and with the justice system that failed to protect. These poems grow like tangled vines: some weighted with anger and grief, others stretching toward resilience and reclamation.

Through testimony, indictment, and survival, the collection captures the searing realities of sexual assault-its aftermath in memory, family, community, and courtroom-and the long shadows it casts on identity, intimacy, and trust. Each poem becomes both a reckoning and a refusal: a declaration that what was stolen cannot be justified, minimized, or erased.

At once personal and political, these verses expose not only an individual act of violence but also the broader systems of misogyny, racism, and betrayal that enable it. And yet, at its core, this book is not about what was taken, but about what endures: voice, selfhood, and the will to name, to resist, and to heal.

The Vines of a Grape is a searing confrontation, but also a testament. It affirms that while a rapist may face indictment, the survivor writes the final record.