This was my introduction to Hughes, outside of Plath’s letters and (in my opinion) his awful, awful, preface and notes to her Collected Poems. It was not at all what I expected. 

This anthology is decisively nihilistic— existentialist at a stretch if one wants to read into Crow’s attempt at song and his ‘Littleblood’— and thus suitably depressive as a meditation too on grief. It is intimately personal because of this aspect, something which does endear you as a reader to Hughes. I liked him in the sense that I wanted to prove him wrong, I wanted to tell him that the heather would be enough of a relief to his contendership, I wanted to tell him there were other ways to love. Of course, in a subversive way, perhaps that’s what he’s trying to tell his reader. 

Despite all this, you want to live. You do not want to escape. Stay. 
The desperation of this plea is best shown by the crudity of Hughes’ language, his control of his punctuation and use of enjambement; he is a man torn apart by personal tragedy, trying to live with the fact he cannot will himself to flee, and can only stay clinging to the cliff side.