I made some small electric poles but am unable to place them. However, creating a blueprint of a pole in another game and saving it allows me to place the pole.

This sounds weird. You should be allowed to carry 1 electric pole (small, medium, large and even substation) in your inventory. You don't get a blueprint of these as it complicates placing them (you can't drag-place poles at max distance with blueprints).
My guess is that you have a small electric pole somewhere in your inventory, see if you can find it :)