Death Rattle is an honest kaleidoscopic portrayal of the isolation, joy and abandonment that beats within the city’s restless heart. It is a trilogy comprising of poems, narratives, lyrics and aphorisms, where the duality of the city and the rural, which have historically been the idealized backcloth for love, lust and loss, flourish wildly. For Hughes the city is a female, fleeting, alluring and violable symbol, the rural a sacred poetic resource gilded with solace and healing. Through choice encounters and assorted personae, death rattle bestows with flinty wit, ruthless reasoning and solemn reflection a wistful eye upon the menagerie of the city’s inhabitants.