Reaction to The Pencil Rack by John Ciardi

        Have you ever felt like you're things seem to disappear into some sort of black hole? How things you once deemed important and something you will never lose ends up in some random place? I certainly have, and so has Ciardi. "The Pencil Rack" is an interesting and quite amusing piece that enumerates random and seemingly insignificant objects that somehow ended up in his pencil rack some time ago.

        This piece reflects many people and their habit of buying and keeping things, but eventually forgetting about them. Some things he kept in his pencil rack are unused, namely the 2 red pencils and a letter opener. There are broken objects like the pens and dentist tools, but like most people, he decided to keep them instead of throwing them away. There are also memorabilia, photos and  things to be given to his kids in the future.

        Every kind of person can see himself in this simple yet effective piece. It serves as a reminder of the "treasures" one can find if one takes the time to look through all of his stuff. Also, it seems to teach readers that you can write about just about everything you can think of because life seems to give you an abundance of topics to choose from.