It never occurred to me I could write poetry until a high school teacher praised a short paragraph of mine by telling me it read like poetry. From that day on I self-identified as a poet and storyteller.  Catcher In the Rye was the first piece of writing that gave me goosebumps.  Jack Kerouac and the beats were among my earliest influences, but by the time I entered the university Shakespeare's sonnets had already made their impression. I was fortunate enough to have several brilliant teachers at the University of Massachusetts who drew me deeper into the world of English 17th Century poets -- especially John Donne. Later: Shelley, Keats followed by the Romantics: Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge.  It wasn't until after graduation that I found Whitman.  The poetry crowd I hung out with drew me to Rimbaud and I spent days reading every biography of Rimbaud I could find. One of my life's regrets is that my French was never good enough to appreciate Rimbaud in his own language. As a young man I met Ruth Stone and she kindly guided and reinforced my poetic journey.  After thirty years as a librarian, writing poetry, short stories and features for magazines and newspapers I retired from the library work world and directed my creative energies to poetry, beginning to get published in small on-line and print journals. My most recent favorite poets are: Michael Ryan, Matthew Dickman, David Chorlton, Michael Rattee, Hayden Carruth, Steve Orlen, Matt Donovan and Mark Doty. Diminuendo Press of Texas published my first collection, EVERY CROW IN THE BLUE SKY, in December of 2009. My book is dedicated to my parents, Miriam Hoffman Needle and Sam Needle who raised six children in a house filled with books. My second collection is titled THAI COMIC BOOKS: POEMS FROM MY LIFE IN THAILAND WITH THE PEACE CORPS: 1967-1969. Preview available at: www.burgessneedle.com   IN 2017 I published SIT AND CRY: Two Years In the Land of Smiles, a memoir of my two years inthe Peace Corps from 1967 to 1969.

Collection of poetry published in 2009: EVERY CROW IN THE BLUE SKY by Diminuendo Press
Collection of poetry published in 2013: THAI COMIC BOOKS: Poems from my life in Thailand with the Peace Corps: 1967-1969
SIT AND CRY: Two Years In the Land of Smiles (a memoir of two years in the Peace Corps - Thailand, 1967-1969).