Possible Clues:

• Poe inspiration
• Black enough to be sounding mad, by the sound of it
• Title animal in a famed poem
• Novelist's party number
• Poe's poetic bird
• Black and shiny
• Flier lacking courage leaving the front
• Have a mad crow, or something like it, by the sound of it
• Black soundin' lack of sense
• Bird of one variety seen soaring