The poem “Sticks” by Thomas Sayers Ellis, is about a man reflecting on his relationship with his father. When the speaker was a young boy his father was a large man with a narrow mind. He was mean, and he was abusive to the boy’s mother. This young man wanted to be just like his father when he was little. He wanted to be a man. However, this young boy found a different avenue to be a man like his father: writing. This young man took a separate path from his father to be a man. He translated his father’s actions, “Beat down, their bodies slammed” (line 10) into words on a paper, “How words are parts of speech With beats and breaths of their own” (line 22-23). He wanted to be like his father, just in a different way. He learned how to use
