The Haunted Oak Notes

  • Representation of lynching, slavery, racism, and crimes against Black people

  • from the perspective of a tree used for lynching

  • perspectives of the mob, the judge, the victim, and the poet

  • not only is the tree haunted, but the people

  • Long “o” sound; mourning and sadness

    • throw, woe, bough

  • “old crime,” being Black

  • Judge and trial seen as fearful, but lynchers approach under a false guise and as seen as even more fearful

  • At the mercy of the mob (a form of the KKK)

  • Judge, doctor, minister and his son are seen as wearing a mask, not ignoring crimes but participating, false identity

  • Tree has empathy, but powerless and therefore sorrowful

  • Tree is cursed, will no longer bear leaves, but bodies

  • Fears clings every time someone passes by

  • the body does not leave, by instead stays on the tree, ignored

  • No peace, endless torture

  • 105 recorded lynchings the year the poem was written (1900)

  • Author spoke about things others were afraid to

  • slaves didn’t see nature as nature, but a reminder of their pain (trauma, PTSD)

  • “Haunted Oak” isn’t haunted in a ghostly/possessed sense, but haunted as in it is being haunted by the things it sees

  • Oak tree symbolizes the tree of Zeus, a powerful, sturdy tree

    • strong enough to serve as a reminder

    • if from the Gods, why is it so powerless in the face of evil


Text Message:

Tree: do you like scary stories?

Receiver: who is this???

Tree: I'm going to tell you the scariest story of them all.

Tree: there's a group of people, who return to me every night. the wind tells me when they come. it howls, then I feel it upon my arms. its a heavy dead weight. it pulls on my limbs, and it strips me bare. it's a foul smell, that tackles my nose, and it screams in agony at me.

Receiver: like a zombie?

Tree: the two are very similar. but zombies are an easy fix. the story goes that you shoot them in the head. but these zombies, they don't go away. they don't want your brain. they want freedom, freedom they'll never get. so they haunt you. every second of every moment, for as long as you exist.

Receiver: ???

Receiver: Hello??

Receiver: Am I being ghosted? by a stranger?