Charles Harper Webb’s narrative poem “The Death of Santa Claus” first appeared in 1992 in The Florida Review before it was collected into Webb’s collection Reading the Water in 1997. This collection won the Morse Poetry Prize and was later honored with the Katherine Tufts Discovery Award. The poems within the volume helped to establish Webb’s reputation as an accessible and humorous poet.

The poem, due to its subject matter of the destruction of the myth of Santa Claus, as well as the age of its speaker (an eight-year-old Webb), is often taught in schools. Its popularity is in part due to its inclusion in Poetry 180, a collection of poems edited in 2002 by then-Poet Laureate of the United States Billy Collins for students to study. “The Death of Santa Claus” is typical of Webb’s poetry and includes many of the touchstones of Stand Up Poetry, a movement to which the author belongs. Webb highlights the hallmarks of the movement, expressed in “Stand Up Poetry: An Essay,” as “clarity, natural language, humor, performability, flights of fancy, a strong individual voice, emotional punch, a close relationship to fiction, [and] references to pop culture” (Webb, Charles Harper. “Introduction.” Stand Up Poetry: The Anthology. California State-Long Beach University Press, 1994).

“The Death of Santa Claus” contains the death of the beloved figure in a child’s imagination, is written in narrative form (meaning it contains storytelling elements such as plot, setting, and characters), utilizes plainspoken language, alludes to pop culture (i.e., Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), and packs a strong emotional punch at the end when the fantasy of the North Pole gives way to the child’s reality in Houston, Texas. The poem appears early in Webb’s literary career but after his career as a working musician and psychotherapist.

Poet Biography

Charles Harper Webb was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1952. His family relocated to Houston, Texas, and Webb grew up there. As a child, Webb enjoyed camping, fishing, and playing baseball. Although close to his parents, Webb considered himself “a closeted agnostic in a Methodist church, a delinquent in the guise of honor student” (See: Further Reading & Resources). He took up playing the guitar, at which he was gifted.

In 1967, although he was only 15, Webb joined his first rock band. For the next 15 years, he financially supported himself by playing guitar. Simultaneously, he attended Rice University, where he began to think of being a writer professionally. After receiving his bachelor of arts in English, Webb decided to pursue graduate studies in creative writing at the University of Washington, where he earned a master of fine arts (MFA). In 1978, he published his first collection of poems, Zinjanthropus Disease. After his time in Seattle, Webb relocated to Los Angeles.

In Los Angeles, he was hired by the University of Southern California to teach introductory writing. There, he earned another MFA in professional writing and later pursued a PhD in psychology, eventually becoming a marriage/family/child psychotherapist. In 1984, he gave up his medical practice when he was hired at California State University, Long Beach, to teach and later run its MFA program in creative writing.

Webb published the collections Everyday Outrages (1989), Poetry That Heals (1991), and A Webb for All Seasons (1992) at the same time he gathered poems for an anthology called Stand Up Poetry (1990), which would have two additional volumes (1994, 2000). In 1997, Webb’s collection Reading the Water won the Morse Poetry Prize as well as the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. In 1998, he won the Whiting Award for emerging writers, and his collection Liver received the Felix Pollack Prize in 1999.

In 2001, Webb received a Guggenheim Fellowship. Four collections appeared between 2000 and 2010, including Tulip Farms and Leper Colonies (2001), Hot Popsicles (2005), Amplified Dog (2006), and Shadow Ball (2009), which contained new and selected poems. Webb’s latest collections include What Things Are Made Of (2013), Brain Camp (2015), and Sidebend World (2018). He also writes essays and has published a novel, Ursula Lake (2022).

Poem Text

Webb, Charles Harper. “The Death of Santa Claus.” 1992. Library of Congress.

Summary

“The Death of Santa Claus” begins with the character of Santa Claus having symptoms of heart disease, including “chest pains” (Line 1). This is followed by a list of excuses as to why he chooses to ignore these pains, including unavailable medical professionals in his area, not renewing his insurance (“Blue Cross” [Line 4]), and his dislike of diagnostics and hospitals. This neglect causes him to experience cardiac arrest in the snow while giving the “reindeer” (Line 10) feed. He does not survive, and those around his workshop mourn him, including his wife, “the elves” (Line 19), and “Rudolph” (Line 20). The locale shifts to Houston, Texas, to focus on the eight-year-old-speaker, who has come home from school and reveals to his mother that his classmates have claimed that Santa Claus is not real. The mother comforts the speaker as she confirms the “terrible / news” (Lines 29-30).