I love Thomas' poetry. A reading of Adlestrop by Richard Burton (yes that Richard Burton) that I heard convinced me to start writing poetry after a long hiatus. It's one I have in my head – great to pull it now and then. That said, I found this book hard rowing. It was very one-note – Thomas as martyr. I too did not know of the Frost/Thomas influence, but it made perfect sense. As to Hughes, though he is celebrated as an observer of animals, to me they are always "Other" in his poems, unlike say the poet's encounter with the Fish in Bishop's poem, or even the skunks at the end of Skunk Hour, by (God help us) Robert Lowell. Only in that prose poem of rescuing the lambing ewe taken straight from his journals, do I see Hughes and the animal joined in any way that is profound.
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