Already renowned as a poet of emotional delicacy and singular stylistic vision, Agee’s hallmark gifts of writerly intimacy and ethical resolve are here expanded and reconfigured on a panoramic canvas – moving from a pared-back opening section to the accelerating pace and barrage-like linguistic assaults of the latter addenda. But for all its freewheeling furies, shifting emotional registers and Kubrick-like black humour, it remains a remarkably formal work, moored to the relentlessly dangerous drumbeat of Donald J. Trump.

The result is a combination of long-form radicalism and eclectic satire, startingly unique in its blend of aphorism, acuity and epic cultural imagining. Composed chronologically for nearly four years (from early 2017 to Election Day 2020), Trump Rant is a triumph of artistic witness and denunciation; an urgent retort to a global culture of imperilled legal standards and depleted literary response; and an incisive model of enlightenment and outrage in a “post-truth” world being visibly darkened by its criminal shadows.

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“A cross between Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Wittgenstein.”
William Crawley, BBC Journalist & Presenter

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“Trump Rant is terrific. I think Agee has covered everything – or nearly – and it’s especially relevant at the moment … I found myself laughing out loud at several points. It’s really great!”
Patricia Craig, critic and essayist

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“It seemed after finishing one section that there could not possibly be more to add, but there always was. I particularly liked the occasional following of a series of serious facts with something a bit more surreal: as where Agee can’t imagine Trump as a scuba-diver, or describing his hair as a frisbee which has alighted on his head.”
Simon Ó Faoláin, file (poet)

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“Trump Rant is essential.”
Michael Longely, poet

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