I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg

The Beat Generation, for all its veneration by hipsters or negative criticism heaped upon it by the ivory-towered establishment, wouldn't have existed without the love, devotion, and determination of one man: Allen Ginsberg. If one were to struggle, and some do, for an inclusive definition of the Beat Generation which would hold true across the pantheon of their works, the one thing they'd all have in common was their friendships with the poet. It was the insistence of Ginsberg that got the holy triumvirate of the beats-Burroughs, Kerouac, and himself-first into print and established as a literary force. It was even Ginsberg's passionate insistence after Kerouac's early death that Kerouac was the best author of the twentieth century which eventually got Kerouac back into print and on the road to the literary stardom Kerouac doggedly sought.

Bill Morgan, Ginsberg's 20-year bibliographer, captures his employer, the poet, and the consummate friend in the most intimate of terms. Morgan introduces I Celebrate Myself with the braggadocios claim he may be the only person alive, beside Ginsberg, who has read every word ever written by the poet. Ginsberg, a dedicated chronicler of his life, left rooms of boxes with journals and manuscripts between his Cherry Valley farm in upstate New York, his New York City apartment, his Bedrock Mortar in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, and in the vaults of the Columbia University Library. To make this claim is to know the man, Ginsberg. As a bibliographer with the entire scope and change of the American culture at his fingertips, who wouldn't read every word they got their hands on? Morgan's claim is solid, and I Celebrate Myself is the proof.

Morgan's book is a strict biographical approach to the author's life, not necessarily a literary biography by definition. Morgan leaves the deciphering of the poems' meanings to Schumacher's The Dharma Lion and to Miles's Ginsberg: A Biography. Although he eschews deciphering the poems and digging for critical meaning, the Penguin Group Publishers and Morgan insert the genesis of the poem in the marginalia of the pages. The unobtrusive critical voice and elegantly annotated marginalia only add to the scholarship of Ginsberg studies. Where in Miles and Schumacher students may find a critical theory relief, Morgan supplies the context of the life which produced the works.

Morgan doesn't try to psychoanalyze Ginsberg's lifestyle either. Morgan simply puts life to paper from beginning to end. Nowhere does biographer intent supersede the subject. Morgan always keeps his voice in the background and lets the life speak for itself-except in the 1997 at Ginsberg's death. Morgan captures Ginsberg's final moments in a heartfelt, heart-rending chapter where only a first-person narrative will suit the enormity of the subject. There have been few biographies written which actually illicit an emotional response from the reader. But, Morgan presents the life of Ginsberg in such a way one can only empathize with poet and feel they've lost a loved one too.

I Celebrate Myself is a must read. Ginsberg, may be more than any other American of the twentieth century, was the turning force behind the culture revolution of post-World War II America. To know Ginsberg's life is to know America. To embrace the greatness of the man and look past what some will assume as faults, is to grasp the nature of the American spirit and to understand our country through the eyes of one of the unannounced Fathers of her greatness. Morgan captures this all in straightforward prosody and inclusive knowledge of his subject and friend. I Celebrate Myself is essential reading for beat fans, American scholars, and anyone who wants to call themselves American.