top of page

Books

'Field Guide to Forgiveness' book cover by Rebecca Watkins. The image presents a solitary figure standing beside a winding path, set against a barren landscape that evokes feelings of solitude and introspection. Three birds soar in the dusky, reddish sky above, their presence adding movement and depth to the scene. The visual elements mirror themes from Watkins' untitled memoir, emphasizing personal reflection and the journey towards forgiveness.

Field Guide to Forgiveness

Field Guide to Forgiveness delves into a shifting landscape of memories that centers on loss, love, regret, and ultimately acceptance. With clarity of language and stark imagery, each poem provides a glimpse into the courage it takes to heal the past. Whether a poem about a tough childhood or one about marriage and a blended family, this body of work is a journey of self-discovery. Although rooted in the deeply personal, these poems also explore the timely topics of school shootings, police brutality, and the pandemic. Vacillating from tender longing to unvarnished realism, Field Guide to Forgiveness provides a map for anyone ready to tackle their own hidden terrain. 

Book cover for Rebecca Watkins' poetry book entitled Sometimes in These Places. The cover features a collage of four evocative photos: the first photo shows a bustling street with a red double-decker bus amidst pedestrians; the second displays towering modern city buildings against a clear blue sky; the third captures two canoeists paddling on serene, mirror-like waters adorned with lush greenery; and the final photograph presents an upward perspective of an intricate metal bridge gleaming under sunlight, silhouetted against the sky.

Sometimes, in These Places

What happens when poetry, "rises off the cracked surface of grief?" Rebecca Watkins explores both the grief and what rises in her newest collection, Sometimes, in These Places. The smooth motion and gentle imagery feels both deeply personal and wildly relatable, tackling dark concepts with sophistication and grace. It feels as though Watkins wants to let us into her house, watch with her all the dark news stories of the day, and then let us leave without solving any of the world's problems. She doesn't tell us it's all going to be alright, or that there's hope in the world, she doesn't have a moral to the story. Rather, she looks at us square in the eye and says, "this is the way things are." Or, in her own words, "I see no footprints in the sand but my own.”  - Unsolicited Press 

You Don't Have To Be Good: A Memoir

(A work in progress)

Rebecca Watkins’ memoir is the story of what happens when we return home with the hope of healing our past.

Rebecca Watkins’ poetry should not be approached lightly. I’d recommend taking a deep breath, sitting some place away from televisions, fluffy pillows and precious porcelain, and dive into Field to Forgiveness with eyes wide open. But don’t think of this as a warning, but an invitation.  An invitation to let yourself be permeable, or you can say vulnerable, to the world as it is, replete with beauties and fraught with imperfections.” Her voice in these poems is soft and ominous, firm and compassionate, strong without wielding weapons other than her courage, her empathy, and the certainty that “the ache toward forgiveness has begun to outweigh the deed”.

—Juan Mobili, Poet Laureate of Rockland County New York, author of Contraband, and Pushcart Prize Nominee 

If, as Rebecca Watkins writes, “an open wound is a parched throat,” then these poems are cool water for anyone hurting, anyone navigating the complex terrain of loss, anyone trying to heal. Watkins is a poet of relentless seeing and re-seeing. She writes with a startling clarity rooted in deep knowledge, love, and an ever-awareness of language’s limits. Here is a poet willing to “walk naked into the desert until my body becomes sand.” Here is a poet embracing loss as it leaves “a field open within us.” 

—Lily Greenberg, Founder of All Ways Writing Collective, Pushcart Prize winner, and author of In the Shape of a Woman 

Published Work

Creative Nonfiction

“Chiles as a Cure for Heartbreak” | Amaranth: A Journal of Food and Writing Art

​

“Review: The Ancient Informs the Modern When Goddesses Speak For Us In Kali Sutra: Poems” | Nyack New and Views 

Poetry

Reclaiming | January Review

​

House Guests, Grace | The Banyan Review

​

Repairing, Unearthing, and To Do List | Impspired Journal 

​

Lockdown Poems | The BeZine

​

The Long Drive | New Feathers Anthology

​

That Boy and Possibly Love | Anti-Heroin Chic

​

The Day I Heard | New Feathers Anthology

​

Searching  | Anderbo

​

In a Painting, Waiting to Remember | Roanoke Review 

​

Three Poems  | SNReview 

​

Red Turtles  | The Year of the Yellow Butterflies 

Print Publications

  • “His Life” Sin Fronteras, Writers Without Borders 

  • “The Day I Heard”  New Feathers Anthology 2020 

  • “Newark, Gate A” Milkweed Poetry Journal Vol. II

  • “Two Days in the Desert,” “Summer Rain,” “On Former 666” Red Mesa Review Vol. 12 

  • “Icarus’s Daughter” Promethean Vol. 36

  • “What Happens When You Mainline Fire?” Promethean Vol. 39

  • After Baghdad” Poetry in Performance Vol. 38

  • “Until Spring” The MT Cup Revue

  • “Burnt” Xray Vol. 2

  • “My First and Last Defense” and “Verses” Whiskey Island Magazine Vol. 43

  • "Tell Me a Story" and "How to Love a Bad Day" Former River River Journal 

Other

  • “Tell Me a Story” and “Promise or a Prayer” displayed at River Hook’s Sheep Meadow Poetry Walk in Upper Nyack

  • "A Mother’s Lament” 2025 Poets Respond to Art Exhibition, Arts MidHudson Art Gallery

  • “Praise Poem During a Pandemic” Featured in Nyack Poetry Walk 

  • “Embrace” Featured in Poets Respond to Art,  Arts Mid-Hudson Gallery 

bottom of page