As part of the Larry Harnisch Reflects on Los Angeles History series, the LA Times reprinted the section of Lawrence Lipton’s Holy Barbarians where Allen strips naked at a poetry reading in response to a heckler. They’ve also posted Allen’s as well as Anais Nin’s version of the same night. Though he only did this stripping act maybe a few times after, it was this 1956 reading that got him the reputation for doing it all the time. Read more about it all – here
and
2012 – This “infamous incident” is addressed more thoroughly, and properly contextualized, by The Allen Ginsberg Project here.
The entire Holy Barbarians is now available for perusal here