A classic Annie Dilliard-ism; “The way you spend your days/is the way you spend your life.” In the latest Oxford American, Southern poet Rebecca Gayle Howard—guest editor of the OA summer issue—talks about her writing process and how she spends her days:

For me the writing life is much like any trade work: one part apprenticeship and one part practice. My days rock back and forth between these two modes. I read a book of poems. Take notes. I sink into the imaginative intelligence and write (listen, dictate). Edit. Research. Edit again. Of course, I have to grocery shop, write checks, make money so the checks won’t bounce, mop the floors. But if it’s a good day, my mind is in the writing process even when my hands are in bleach.

And while we’re on the subject: five poems by Rebecca Gayle Howard.