Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Marie Howe’s “Fort” is a meditation on exclusion, gender roles, and the longing for access to spaces where power and self-definition are being shaped. The poem presents a vivid recollection of childhood, where the boys? construction of a fort becomes a symbolic assertion of autonomy and hierarchy. The fort itself, described as "a kind of igloo made from branches and weeds, a dome with an aboveground tunnel entrance," is an emblem of a world created by and for boys, complete with the marks of civilization: "a campfire in the center because smoke came out of a hole in the roof." Its very structure suggests a secret, self-contained space, where those who belong learn something essential about power, while those who do not are left to watch from the periphery.

The speaker, presumably a girl, notes that "we couldn’t go there." The exclusion is not questioned; it is simply a given, an unspoken rule that the girls accept without resistance. "I don’t even remember trying, not inside." The absence of rebellion underscores the totality of the division—there is no sense of injustice, only the recognition of a naturalized separation. The fort is both a physical and psychological boundary, one that defines the difference between those who build and those who watch.

The speaker recalls "a deal we didn’t keep—so many Dr Peppers which nobody drank," hinting at a failed transaction, a gesture of offering or barter that ultimately did not matter. The boys did not need the exchange; their power was already established through the act of creation. This moment of forgotten commerce suggests that the girls attempted, however subtly, to negotiate their way in, but their offerings were left untouched.

The brother, standing outside the fort, is depicted in a near-mythic light: "bare-chested, weary from labor, proud, dignified, and talking to us as if we could never understand a thing he said." The imagery of toil and masculine pride elevates him to a figure of mastery—he has built something, therefore he knows something the girls do not and, by implication, cannot. The phrase "not in a thousand years" emphasizes the depth of the perceived gap between those who create and those who observe. His "true knowledge and disdain" reinforce the notion that this act of construction is more than just play—it is an initiation into a world of competence and control that the girls are implicitly denied.

During this period of fort-building, an unexpected shift occurs: "For those weeks the boys didn’t chase us." The usual game, where boys pursue girls, is temporarily abandoned in favor of an internal, self-directed project. The fort, in its exclusivity, redirects their energy; rather than enacting dominance through pursuit, they now assert it through the creation of space. The boys? newfound focus is on "patching the fort and sweeping the dirt outside the entrance." These actions—maintenance, caretaking—are traditionally associated with domestic labor, yet here they are performed in a way that cements male autonomy rather than inviting female participation. The fort is not just a refuge but a self-contained village, complete with its own rituals: "women in magazines, cigarettes and soda and the strange self-contained voices they used to speak to each other with." The presence of magazines featuring women, juxtaposed with the exclusion of actual girls, highlights the contrast between the abstract, controlled femininity within their world and the real, unpredictable presence of the girls outside.

For the girls, the fort represents something they are simultaneously repelled by and drawn to. "And we approached the clearing where their fort was like deer in winter hungry for any small thing—what they had made without us." The simile suggests both vulnerability and longing. The girls are like creatures on the margins, needing something essential from the space but unable to claim it. The phrase "what they had made without us" is central to the poem’s meditation on gendered power and creation. The act of making—of staking out a space and defining it—is itself a form of control. The girls do not want to destroy the fort; they do not even want to enter it. They simply "wanted to watch them live there." The boys, by building the fort, have also built an identity, a shared secret that separates them from the girls. The girls, in turn, are left in the role of spectators, their desire unfulfilled but intensified by the inaccessibility of what they witness.

Howe captures the poignancy of early gendered experiences, where the world begins to take shape along invisible lines of inclusion and exclusion. The fort, while a small childhood structure, becomes a microcosm of larger societal divisions—who builds, who is left out, who controls the narrative of belonging. The speaker does not express anger or even overt resentment; instead, she conveys the quiet, painful recognition of difference, of a world being formed just beyond her reach.

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