SOURCE: Reilly, Evelyn. “Naked Allen Ginsberg.” Parnassus 16, no. 2 (1991): 161-71.

In the following essay, Reilly explores Ginsberg's status as an outsider and its impact on his work.

Who goes there? hankering, gross, mystical, nude … 

—Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

I want to be known as the most brilliant man in America 

I want to be the spectacle of Poesy triumphant over trickery of the world 

—All empty all for show, all for the sake of Poesy to set surpassing example of sanity as measure for late generations 

—Allen Ginsberg, “Ego Confession”

1

Oh, Allen … ! What is that special sigh we reserve for Allen Ginsberg? Who is this man who has moved among us with such public intimacy for the last four decades arousing so much admiration, embarrassment, irritation, and affection? As I weigh five-hundred-plus pages of his “life” in my mind and hand, I wonder, do we need a biography...