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tashtonnes's review
3.0
things to write down before i forget them
- this is a text that is anxious about identity, about essentialism
- the poetry works rly well to portray Akhenaten's fractured identity and mental state, as someone who is not quite all together
- the anachronisms piss me off (at least i think they're anachronisms) bc the concerns about fidelity and incest feel very out of place and i dislike that they're used to characterise Akhenaten as selfish bc like that's what egyptians did?????? feels like contemporary concerns projected upon ancient egypt and its not fair
- the fact that an australian women is projecting concerns onto and writing from the pov of an ancient egyptian man makes me really uncomfortable and makes me think about what is acceptable to use from the past and to make ur own
- this is a text that is anxious about identity, about essentialism
- the poetry works rly well to portray Akhenaten's fractured identity and mental state, as someone who is not quite all together
- the anachronisms piss me off (at least i think they're anachronisms) bc the concerns about fidelity and incest feel very out of place and i dislike that they're used to characterise Akhenaten as selfish bc like that's what egyptians did?????? feels like contemporary concerns projected upon ancient egypt and its not fair
- the fact that an australian women is projecting concerns onto and writing from the pov of an ancient egyptian man makes me really uncomfortable and makes me think about what is acceptable to use from the past and to make ur own
vegancleopatra's review
1.0
I like poetry but it really depends on the style and what the author is trying to convey as to whether I will enjoy it. Considering my rating it is easy to guess that I did not like the author's style or what she conveyed. Granted Akhenaten was likely a megalomaniac, I mean he started a singular deity religion in Ancient Egypt of all places. And yes many royal families throughout history, including AE, had incest and twisted family lines. But holy shit the way in which Porter wrote it all was disturbing. I can only imagine the faces I was making throughout the poems, which were crude and disturbed. It wasn't just merely the sex with his daughters (*vomit*) that was detailed, it was also the scenes between Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Porter's choice of vulgar language on top of an already disturbed focal character of Akhenaten was simply over the top and turned me off entirely. And on top of all this I did not find the poetry itself to be anything but mediocre the majority of the time.
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