James L. White (poet)

In the spring of 2008, the White Crane Institute and Phil Willkie announced the establishment of a biennial gay men's poetry prize in honor of White, who was openly gay. The White Crane/James White Poetry Prize is a manuscript prize honoring "excellence in Gay Male Poetry." The judge for the inaugural year of the prize was the poet Mark Doty.

In 1991, Phil Willkie and Greg Baysans edited and published The Gay Nineties, an anthology of works originally published in the Review.

In 1983, a Minneapolis-based gay writers group led by Phil Willkie published the first issue of The James White Review, a literary quarterly of gay men's writing. Initially intended to publish the works of writers native to White's Minneapolis, the group began accepting writing from across the United States and internationally by its second issue. Each issue contained poetry, prose, photography and other artwork centered around the gay male experience. The magazine published in Minneapolis from 1983 until 1999 following its sale to the Washington, D.C.-based Lambda Literary Foundation for $1. The Lambda Literary Foundation continued publication of the magazine to its 1,700 subscribers until 2004.

His own books of poetry include the book The Salt Ecstasies, published in 1982 after his death by Graywolf Press.

White died of cardiovascular disease on July 13, 1981, at the age of 45.

While teaching, White edited the poetry collections Time of the Indian (1976), which featured the poetry of Indian schoolchildren, and First Skin Around Me (1976), which featured the work of contemporary Indian writers including Joy Harjo and Duane Niatum.

James L. White (March 26, 1936 – July 13, 1981) was an American poet, editor and teacher.