Five Minutes With: Jamie White, Poet

On the second Monday of each month, members of the Performance Poets Association congregate at Starbucks in Little Neck Plaza to read their work.

In June, we profiled . This Monday, we spent our five minutes with Jamie White, a Manhasset resident and PPA regular.

Little Neck Patch: How long have you been a poet?

Jamie White: I’ve been a writer since I was a kid. Since I was 15, 16- years-old.

LNP: What inspires your poems?

JW: Living inspires my poems. I’m committed to, at least partially, a life of letters, so I read and I think and I feel compelled to write.

LNP: Do you have any sort of reoccurring theme that you tend to go back to?

JW: I don’t want to sound reductionist, but there’s only two things to write about: Love and death. When you’re younger it’s sex and death, then it’s love and death.

LNP: Do you do any other types of writing?

JW: Actually I’ve been writing song lyrics for a long time, and recently I’ve connected with a musician. We’ve written enough songs that we are in the studio, and we’re trying to get a CD together, which I think we will.

LNP: Can you describe its sound? As in, does it adhere to a particular genre?

JW: No, it’s very eclectic, to say the least.

LNP: Does it sound like anything that’s out there right now?

JW: It’s better just to listen to things and not compare them to something, at least until you hear them. Or read them. Or see them.

LNP: That’s very poetic.

JW: Yeah, I mean, I’m responsible for 98.9 percent the lyrics. Those are mine.

LNP: Do you play an instrument as well?

JW: No, no. The musician that I work with is very open to letting me – as a non-musician – communicate my musical ideas to him. But you know, 92 percent of the music is his. It’s very enjoyable.