Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, White attended Indiana University and Colorado State University where he attained an MA in Literary Criticism.

White taught as a poet in the schools on the Navajo Nation and in Minnesota public schools as part of a pilot program by COMPAS. He also taught with Allen Ginsberg at Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics.

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.

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.