18 pages • 36 minutes read
Charles Harper WebbThe Death of Santa Claus
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“Marilyn’s Machine” by Charles Harper Webb (1995)
This poem, originally published in The Paris Review, was also collected into Reading the Water, along with “The Death of Santa Claus.” Again Webb uses an iconic figure, this time the actress Marilyn Monroe, to discuss humanity. Here, Marilyn buys a washing machine. The speaker notes the expectations the world has of Marilyn as a sex symbol in much the same way people have expectations of Santa Claus. A difference appears in the focus on Marilyn’s inner thoughts at the end:
[She] think[s] of a man thinking of her some distant day
when she is nothing but an image made from movies,
photos, gossip, exposes—an image thinking of him
thinking of her in her black wig and flowered muumuu,
rinsing, spinning till the dirt is washed away (Lines 20-24).
Both this and “The Death of Santa Claus” deal with the erasure of what is known to reveal a different state.
“The Tooth Fairy” by Charles Harper Webb (2003)
Originally published in Bryant Literary Review in 2003, “The Tooth Fairy” deals with a mythic figure who visits children and leaves them gifts, a character who is compared to “the Easter / Bunny, Santa Claus, and God” (Lines 18-19). The first-person narrator is mesmerized by the Tooth Fairy but also doubtful, as she “wasn’t easy / to believe” (Lines 11-12). Much like the child narrator of “The Death of Santa Claus,” the narrator here correlates the reality of the Tooth Fairy with the need to believe that “Mom and Dad […] / […] really would / love me always, like they said, and never die” (Lines 20-22). Nostalgia in both poems works to show how we move from childhood innocence into greater knowledge of death and pain as we enter adulthood.
“We Rarely Mark When They’ve Occurred” by Charles Harper Webb (2014)
This poem, which appeared in the literary magazine 32 Poems in 2014, has a similar feeling of longing and nostalgia that appears in “The Death of Santa Claus.” Here, the speaker enumerates some of the moments we fail to mark in our daily routine, such as enjoying what could be our “last papaya, / spooned like orange candy” (Lines 15-16). There is a sense, too, that the realization of this transience creates a new understanding or appreciation as the speaker notes how their “pencil slides / across the paper, jabs / a period, and lifts, satisfied” (Lines 19-21). Webb uses small details, as he does in “The Death of Santa Claus,” to capture important, if fleeting, moments.
Further Literary Resources
Charles Harper Webb Website (2023)
This is Webb’s professional website and contains links to essays and video clips, as well as featuring information about some of his books. The poem “Reading the Water”—the title poem of the collection “The Death of Santa Claus” appears in—is featured on the site. In “About the Author,” Webb briefly discusses his career in music, literature, and psychotherapy, as well as growing up “in the suburbs of Houston, Texas, with a lush forest of pine and oak at the end of his back yard.”
“‘What Things Are Made Of’: An Interview With Charles Harper Webb” by Nathan Moore (2013)
In this interview for Heavy Feather Review, Moore and Webb discuss his use of first-person point of view in poems, childhood disappointment, as well as the use of humor in poetry, all of which can be seen in “The Death of Santa Claus.” Webb also discusses his influences and musicality in poetry.
“Where Parallel Lines Meet: Poetry Talk With Nikole Brown, Rusty Morrison, Charles Harper Webb, and Matthew Zapruder” by Poetry Flash (2009)
These are comments from Brown, Morrison, Webb, and Zapruder that came out of a panel sponsored by Poetry Flash at the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Chicago in 2009. In his section, Webb covers his positioning on Stand Up Poetry, which echoes the words of his introduction in Stand Up Poetry: The Anthology (1994). He discusses the need for poems to not be staid, mentioning his background as an agnostic:
I love energetic poems that boil, seethe, flash, or shimmer on the page. I made my living as a rock singer/guitarist for years, and approach my poems—even the sad ones—with rock-and-roll fervor. Too many poems lie on the page as if they've been chloroformed (“Where Parallel Lines Meet: Charles Harper Webb”).
This article helps to show how “The Death of Santa Claus” might fit in with the Stand Up Poetry movement.
“Saint Nicholas and the Origin of Santa Claus” by the St. Nicholas Center (2002-2023)
This website gives details about the origin of Santa Claus, as well as Washington Irving’s early descriptions of the famous figure. The importance of Clement Clarke Moore’s A Visit from St. Nicholas (1823) is discussed, as well as the key American illustrators who helped formulate our visual conceptions of Santa (Nast, Wyeth, Rockwell, Leyendecker, and Sundblom). These help to clarify allusions Webb makes to Santa’s world in the first seven stanzas of the poem.
Listen to Poem
In this August 14, 2013 episode of the National Public Radio’s program The Writer’s Almanac, former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins fills in for host Garrison Keillor. He begins reading Webb’s poem at the 3:01 time stamp.
