<p>Seventy</a> Years of Creative Writing at Princeton</p>
<p>Physics</p>
<p>If time is infinite,
You will, at some point,
Become a pterodactyl.
Im sorry in advance, my sweet.
And I will, of course, dance around you carrying
A duck.
After which,
We will sit down
On a meteorite
And I will write
This poem again.</p>
<p>from Kindling, a creative thesis by Annabelle Beaver 09</p>
<p>Long before the Lewis Center for the Arts provided the creative and performing arts at Princeton with a new vitality, students had an opportunity to pursue their interest and proficiency in various forms of literary art under the guidance of writers. Beginning with poet laureate of the United States Allen Tate in 1939, our students have worked closely with some of the finest writers in the world, including such giants as Kingsley Amis, Toni Morrison, and Philip Roth, and a current 19-member full- and part-time faculty ranging from poets Paul Muldoon and C. K. Williams to novelists Jeffrey Eugenides and Joyce Carol Oates.</p>
<p>Graduates of the Program in Creative Writing have themselves earned literary accolades and a place on many nightstandsfrom William Meredith Jr. 40, also a poet laureate of the United States, to novelist Jonathan Safran Foer 99, who credits Professor Oates as the first person ever to make me think I should try to write in any sort of serious way. Yet what makes this program remarkable is not the professional writers it has produced but the thousands of students whose love of both writing and reading it has encouraged. The opportunity afforded to undergraduates in every discipline to explore great works of literature and practice the writers craft with the caliber of faculty we have assembled is typically confined to graduate schools. And in contrast to Master of Fine Arts programs, where students are necessarily focused on launching successful writing careers, at Princeton students are writing for the joy of it. . . . (continued)</p>
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<p>More information about the arts at Princeton can be found here:</p>