CROW MIND by Tobey Hiller

 

In Crow Mind, Tobey Hiller depolarizes human and animal, she plumbs the knowledge ‘our tribes share.’ In conjunction and relationship, crow becomes a beloved companion from another consciousness. The poet looks within and without, and sees crow—wary subject, lover, parent, and numinous child; crow as mythic presence, whose proverbs arise from neither heaven nor hell, but airy reaches and greeny shade. Do not neglect the luster between these covers.

–Marsha de la O, author of Every Ravening Thing

 

In Tobey Hiller‘s entrancing book, “Crow Mind,” one hears echoes of fable, or of Native American animal-spirit stories. Crow companion, her guide to the wilds of her back yard, is “a dark more definite/than light’s absence.” Hiller skillfully captures his moves and moods in lyrical, exact descriptions—crow “surveys,” “uses tools,” “watches me watching.” Short lines, and the occasional judicious rhyme, draw one in at an unhurried but compelling pace, until the reader feels immersed in the unique ambiance created by the respectful attention between two species sharing territory.

–Grace Marie Grafton, author of LENS

 

In these wise poems, Tobey Hiller meditates on the observer and observed—which is which?—and shows us shared crow/human qualities: alertness, inventiveness, persistence, adaptability. I’m entranced by the poetic voice of Crow Mind: direct yet tender, understated yet profound. Hiller offers quiet truths in this beautiful collection: “Together is the only/ownership, I think” and “I know this because Crow’s out there/ watching me watching./When I was young,/I slid down snowbanks too./ Slippery’s its own reward.” Certainly, reading Crow Mind, too, is its own reward.

–Kathleen McClung, author of The Typists Play Monopoly and Almost the Rowboat

 

Tobey Hiller catches every nuance, every tail flick, every swagger or strut of her avian neighbors; you begin to think she’s become crow.  The female crow neighbor, “defers, it seems, to his rough talk.”  A particular male crow “chases cats around a courtyard/and wanders off all acackle.”  Hiller’s done her research: her poems are full of spirited illustrations of crow study results: “Crows look.  Notice pattern.” “He kept his eye on where/the nuts fell, watched the telltale flag/of Squirrel’s tail.”  In the end my favorite thing about Crow is that both his pragmatism and his love of freedom reflect qualities in our tribe too: when he misses a mouse he is grabbing for,  “…like all natural athletes and realists, like Hume or summer or politicians, he moves on. Regrets fill no bellies. Blue sky calls.”

–Gail Entrekin, Editor, Canary (canarylitmag.org)

 

Review: Crow Mind by Tobey Hiller

–Susan Nordmark, The Los Angeles Review