Jennifer Greer has always had an artist’s heart. She was writing songs, singing and playing piano at the age of 8, but for most of her life it was poetry and not music that she pursued. She even had her writing published. Then a funny thing happened when she turned 25: music took her over again. Greer decided to become a songwriter and moved from NYC to the slower pace of rural western Massachusetts. A short while later she landed in Boston, where she’s been ever since.

Greer’s music is piano driven—her high and lovely birdsong voice delicately floating over the low dark chords, jazz influenced drums and bass. Her years of work on poetry shine through her songs, which are rich with imagery. Greer released her first recorded work, “Jewel Machine,” in 2002, but it’s her latest offering, the sophomore follow up “Apiary,” that brings her to Portsmouth. Greer recently played The Press Room, and returns to the area on Monday, Jan. 30 to The Red Door, where Justin Catalino and Rebecca Pronsky join Greer to fill out the triple bill.

age: 33
place of birth: Bronx, N.Y.
grew up: Nyack, N.Y.
book you’re reading now: Zorba the Greek
in your CD player: Ethiopiques “Live in Addis”
musical guilty pleasure: Led Zeppelin, but without guilt!
biggest inspiration: Emily Dickinson
 
What was/is it about music and poetry that compelled you to create it instead of just enjoy it on the sidelines? What does it do for you/ to you?
To be honest it was not a choice. “Compelled” is a good word. I started to write melodies on the piano as a little girl, it was just another way of speaking, of finding a voice. And probably releasing whatever was going on with me. And poetry, which was the main love of my life, pretty much overtook me. Nothing affected me as much as reading and writing it. I felt, and still do, that it offers another way of life, it gives us the air element, allows us to live in imagination, abstraction, intuition, in a way that “normal” daily life does not. It’s really another kind of truth, about the spaces between things, not just things themselves. Even when I wrote poetry, I think, like many, in the creative moment I was sort of seized by something, I was passive to something running through me.
 
For someone who only took up piano again “seriously” at 25, you are quite an accomplished player. What was it that inspired you to divert time and energy from poetry back toward music after several years?
Again, it was not a choice. And it was a change that ripped me apart. Basically I stopped hearing lines, words of the beginning of poems. It just sort of faded out, against my will and with me watching very frightened, while melodies began to take over my creative life. I really did not know what was happening. But in retrospect one muse descended while another ascended. Or maybe it’s the same muse after all. And thanks for the compliment, but I don’t feel accomplished at all! Maybe for pop. You listen to someone like Glenn Gould or Keith Jarrett or Fats Waller and that is accomplishment.

Tori Amos is the easy, perhaps lazy, comparison. I think I can hear her influence in the way you sing, your phrasing. What musicians have informed your work?
She has, but mostly in her sense of using a song as a journey. I always found her daring in that way. And her use of details. I live for details. Joni Mitchell I think is the greatest songwriter ever. Suzanne Vega when I was a teenager. Also some of the impressionist composers, like Debussy and Ravel.
 
What’s the plan for your music? Is this a passion-driven hobby, or do you have sights on a record deal and the whole bit?
It is definitely not a hobby. I want very much to be doing it full time, to be touring, to get a manager and do as much as I can.
 
What precipitated the move from NYC to western Massachusetts? Then from there to Boston? Did it have to do with your music?
NYC to western Mass had to do with being terribly sick of New York. I realized I was born there, but did not choose to live there really, and it never felt like home. I was sick of the arrogance and aggression. I needed to be closer to land and farms and cows and space. My dream has always been to have a farm house with a few goats, a great library and a big piano. Western Mass felt like home. But in the end doing music there felt like a dead end, so it was either back to New York or up to Boston. I chose Boston, because it was unfamiliar to me, and smaller.
 
Is there some philosophy that guides your art? Your performances?
Oh, that’s a very big question. I’ll start with the performances. It took me a long time to get focused when I perform. Nerves get in the way. But my emphasis now is on relaxing, so I can be totally present, so I can be a generous performer, feeling out what people need that night, not just stuck with my head in the piano. And I don’t always get there. As for the art, I strive to blend the unconscious with the conscious. All my songs have an element of me working something out consciously, even mathematically, on the piano in terms of form, but also letting things take shape, letting myself be held by the hand and taken to places that surprise me. It’s very much about listening, as it was with the poetry. But also I am a harsh critic on myself, and I get bored by what I do unless I feel I’m growing, finding some new ground even if it’s just a little handful of new dirt. So I’ve also had to learn to be compassionate to myself as an artist, to let myself make some bad stuff just to sort of clean out the pipes.
 
What can people expect from your show at The Red Door on Jan. 30?
Hopefully it will be a full trio, and they can expect a lot of energy and melody.
 
Anything else to add?
 I’ve been thinking about renewal this New Year, about calendars. I wish all of us the ability to find or create renewal where we may need it.