Mary Rose O'Reilley is an American poet and writer of non-fiction.
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She was born in Pampa, Texas, and educated in Roseville and Saint Paul, Minnesota. She was raised a Catholic, and served as a novice in a religious community. She is now a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). She has spent time in Buddhist practice, in particular under Thich Nhat Hanh. [1] She graduated from the College of St. Catherine and completed graduate work at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
From 1978 to 2006, she taught English and environmental studies at St. Thomas College.[2]
She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
The word "soul" is printed fifteen times in Mary Rose O’Reilley’s Walt Whitman Award winning book, which is probably too many for any single volume of poetry. Predictably, her obsession with the soul signals a preoccupation with death, a well-worn path in poetry that much of O'Reilly's book travels...At her best, however, O’Reilley undoubtedly manages to recreate and call forth the wild impulse within us all.[3]