Blog
That Pole in "Sticks" by George Saunders
by Writing Workshops Staff
2 hours ago
Maureen Aitken teaches Flash Fiction Writing Workshop: Intensifying Flash Fiction Through Time and Place, a live two-hour Zoom seminar on Tuesday, November 10th, at WritingWorkshops.com, the official education partner of Electric Literature. Ahead of class, she sent us this short essay on George Saunders's 392-word story "Sticks," and on the metal poles that have followed her through a Midwestern life.
That Pole in "Sticks" by George Saunders
By Maureen Aitken
The pole in the story "Sticks" by George Saunders scares the crap out of me. In this 392-word story, the father goes out to the yard, and on the designated holidays and times of importance, he decorates, not a Christmas tree or other item, but a pole he constructed in his front yard. This decorating has a significance he hopes to express. There is much to say about his effort.
They Dotted the Landscape
What makes me a little queasy, though, is something completely different. I have grown up in The Midwest, and lived through recessions, stagflation, layoffs, and economic upturns. And I have seen these poles all of my life. After reading "Sticks" again, I realize that they have haunted my youth.
As I grew up, the laundry lines of working-class families began to calcify at the same time as the jobs. Back in the day the two metal T poles connected long lines where bedding, shirts, and pants hung over the weekends. But as the poles aged, often one remained, and sometimes it tilted. One line resembled a cross, a threat, and a strange omen. As a girl, I would see them and feel the shiver of history. The metal T resembled other large crosses, the burning kind.
A Bad Omen
In my life, many metal poles meant for one purpose became something else. A stop sign on a pole was helpful one day, the sign gone the next set the intersection into chaos. A street sign proved your location. You were going the right way. Without that sign, the pole held a bad omen. Turn around. Don't come here. Just the other day, as we drove through St. Paul, a man walked through traffic carrying a street pole with a No Parking sign on the top. Not a part of the pole. The whole pole. He tapped the back of our car two times and moved on his way.
The father who uses the pole on his lawn to express the season is trying at something. Maybe he's honoring the seasons of his own youth with what remains. Maybe he's too repressed in his life to express more than what can be put on the pole at different seasons.
In the Yard
In our yard at home, there is a laundry line with the two T's. Two of the four lines have broken. Still, I do what I can to preserve them. They are part of history. They are also part of what felt like a humbler time, when this time can feel precarious. Ask the guy walking down the street with the No Parking sign. Like the father in this story, he is trying to tell us something.
I think there are, for all of us, objects in our youth that signify something larger. There are probably many. We will be writing about that and more in my November 10th online class from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM ET. There are a few seats remaining. I hope you can join us.
That shiver of history, the object from childhood that turns out to mean more than it should, is what Maureen's class is built to help you find and write. Only a couple of seats remain for November 10th, so enroll in Intensifying Flash Fiction Through Time and Place before they go.
WritingWorkshops.com is an independent, artist-run creative writing school and the official education partner of Electric Literature. Since 2016, we've helped writers strengthen their voice, develop a greater understanding of craft, and forge a path to publication.
