Benjamin Fortier
Phantoms
Eighteen months after the city of Al-Falluja was torn apart by vicious fighting, a reserve infantry battalion took over the deadly AO. Among the Marines was a young, empathetic artist that was eager to prove his worth as a warrior. The horrors and heroism he encountered unraveled the veil of disillusion brought on by years of social conditioning. These are his recollections, through the eyes of phantoms.
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Stones of the Wooded Valley
In 2019, I released my sophomore poetry collection entitled: Stones of the Wooded Valley. Like my first volume, this includes work that span the course of a decade.
The themes that I tackle in this volume are not for the feint of heart, and require maturity and balance. Topics that I confront include sexual violence, abuse, genocide, war and combat, emotional distress, grief, loss, and mental health.
The collection isn't completely bleak, however. Sprinkled among the heavy topics are poems that reflect on love, friendship, camaraderie, gratitude, and thankfulness.
The Silent Whispers of Omens
Released 2009
My first publication, independently published through the Amazon "CreateSpace" program.
From a reader:
"Raw, soiled, powerful: poems of war-- Fortier seems near-genius in capturing the hopeless man clinging to the seed of hope. In “The Path to Peace” the author demonstrates an artistry born of the hell of modern war; a poetry born of coal scratchings on blood-stained granite. As with almost any poetry collection-there is an unevenness, there are also a number of poems that would have been better left on the shelf." - Paul Letendre
That's a pretty fair assessment.
I was a young guy and didn't really care about themes / flow / editing / proofreading. This book is a great reflection of what life was like for me in my early-twenties: jumbled, disjointed, and raw.
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