<p>Princeton</a> University - 'Wildly creative' poetry program thrives at Princeton; festival planned</p>
<p>"A poetry class at Princeton usually starts with a small group of students sitting around a table, talking about rhythm and images and language. </p>
<p>If the professor is Brenda Shaughnessy, she may offer one of her quirky rules: You may only use the word "soul" in a poem once in your lifetime, and never the word "shards." Susan Wheeler has asked students to write a poem in which they approach their subject from the point of view of an inanimate object. And Paul Muldoon likes to give these instructions at the end of a class: "Don't come back here please without a poem that's going to change my life." </p>
<p>"The professors here have given me a sense of poetry as an enjoyable, playful thing," said Maia ten Brink, a sophomore who has taken three poetry classes at Princeton. "I've learned from them to sidle into it, wander into it, follow a thought, play around -- and look for sources of inspiration where you might not think they would be." </p>
<p>Intimate classes -- enrollment is capped at 10 students -- and a faculty composed of highly regarded poets, two of whom are Pulitzer Prize winners, make Princeton an incomparable place to write poetry, say students. . . . (continued)"</p>
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<p>Princeton's Creative Writing Program is widely praised and has produced a number of prominent young writers including Jonathan Safran Foer '99 author of "Everything is Illuminated" (which had been his senior thesis).</p>
<p>More information about Princeton's Creative Writing Program may be found here:</p>