Burgess Needle is inspired by love, friendship, the virtuosity of contemporary poetry and the natural wonders of planet Earth. He will be forever grateful to his parents, Sam Needle and Miriam Hoffman Needle, for having kept every nook and cranny of their home filled with books. Currently, Burgess lives in Tucson, with his wife, Barbara, a retired school psychologist. After earning a degree at the University of Massachusetts, Burgess joined the Peace Corps and taught English in Nangrong, a small village in northeast Thailand. Many of his later poems were based on the people and events that touched his heart during those two years. After returning to the United States, he worked at a variety of jobs before deciding to become a school librarian. There may still be some former students who remember Mr. Needle’s somewhat scary impersonation of Edgar Allan Poe.. For several years, he and Tucson poet Michael Rattee published a poetry quarterly: Prickly Pear/Tucson. Burgess has also been a co-director of The Southern Arizona Writing Project.
His e-mail address is: bbneedle@cox.net