Amber O'Reilly
Biography
Amber O’Reilly is a French-Canadian multilingual poet, spoken word artist, playwright and screenwriter from Yellowknife. Her first French-language poetry collection Boussole franche is published with Les Éditions du Blé and won the 2021 Prix littéraire Rue-Deschambault. Annie et Tom du lundi au vendredi is her first full-length play, published in June 2023 with Les Éditions du Blé. In 2021, she produced the play with Winnipeg's Théâtre Cercle Molière as a hybrid film-theatre work directed by Marie-Ève Fontaine. The play was read at the 10th Festival à haute voix at Théâtre l'Escaouette in Moncton, and was selected for the 12th Women Playrights International Conference 2022. Amber received the 2021 Prix Roland-Mahé for this project.
She completed a French-language Independent Study in Playwriting at the National Theatre School of Canada from September 2022 to May 2023. She received the 2024 Prix RBC for her theatre project Ébréchée. Her play Soutensions is being produced at Théâtre Cercle Molière in Winnipeg from March 18-28, 2026. Her poetry and critical writing have appeared in several journals, magazines and newspapers and she has performed across Canada. She is also the author of several short theatre and film works. Her passion for languages has led her to speak French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese and English. Amber has served on the boards of Thin Air Winnipeg International Writers Festival, the Association des auteur-e-s du Manitoba français, Cinémental Manitoba and la Fédération de la jeunesse canadienne-française.
Her roots are French-Canadian from Ontario, Irish, Ukrainian, Norwegian and Algonquin. She grew up in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories where she lived full-time until age 16. In high school , she began scribbling poetry into her notebooks and hasn't stopped. Since then, she has continued to uproot herself both physically and spiritually. She has always listened to others stories and created her own. Amber travels through space and through others, excavating her work from her lived experiences.
O'Reilly's poetry looks at the self, relationships between human beings, the natural world, language, and place. Some of her favourite poets include Mario Benedetti, Pablo Neruda, Mary Oliver, and Jennifer Still.
Micro-interview
I began reading poetry around eighth grade at École Allain St-Cyr in Yellowknife, NT. We had anthologies of contemporary Canadian poetry in the classroom that allowed me to discover the poetry of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Service, and many more. I remember my English teacher assigning the exercise of describing a colour through the five senses. I later wrote a poem about my love for dark chocolate.
Within Robert Service’s work, I particularly remember The Cremation of Sam McGee, because it depicted the North in such a mystical and wild manner. As we recited the poem and went beyond the corny ballad it can appear to be at first glance, we learnt that poems are also vehicles for story, they are time capsules that capture people, places, and circumstances, preserving them in a droplet of eternity. Reading about Sam McGee inspired me to enter Above & Beyond’s Robert Service poetry contest as a high school student, and I wrote a poem titled The Ghosts of Giant Mine, a testimony about the three hundred thousand tons of arsenic stored underground at the former site of Yellowknife’s most infamous gold mine, and the impact of this legacy on the community.
I would scribble heartbreak poems into school notebooks in high school. I had kept diaries since about age 10, and so it was natural for me to pour out my thoughts as words. Poetry helped me to express myself with creative intent. It guided me towards growth and personal development.
In 2012, I was a student at Lester B. Pearson United World College of the Pacific, with other youth from across the world. I joined a slam team with four other students and we registered for Victoria, BC’s local high school slam tournament, Victorious Voices. It was a rewarding challenge to write group pieces in addition to our individual poems, and to perform them very shortly afterward for an audience that did not know us. To our great surprise, we won the tournament, and I fell in love with spoken word. It became the door through which I entered the world of poetry, stepping into my life as a poet.
Poets are messengers, whistleblowers, detectives, snipers and philosophers. We interpret the phenomenon of life and extract all of its colours, pour better or for worse. We speak up about issues and causes and our poems are battle cries. What I’m saying is that it’s difficult to remain relevant as a poet in today’s world without engaging in the world around us. We cannot practice this craft alone in ivory towers.
In our communities, poets can work with school groups or groups, marginalized or underserved adults, and equip folks with tools for creative expression, encouraging them to value their voices. We can support politicians and businesses by sharing our world visions and strategies for creative problem-solving and sustainable economic development. Poets are both artists and citizens, and we are essential to the workings of our societies.
When I Become You by Teva Harrison, because it gives me strength and reminds me that we are so privileged to give and receive love in this life.
