Wednesday, January 26, 2011

More on the way...

Weve got a few tricks here and there up our sleaves, we do.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

PRESS RELEASE: The Biblioclast


IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE PUBLICATION OF
LUDOVICO DE MEDICI'S


THE BIBLIOCLAST
is the first volume in the up and coming "400 Drunken Rabbits" series.

The collection contains six poems designed to

be read in order, out of order, in utter disorder, all the time or not at all.

'The Biblioclast' is available in your choice of yellow or azure

for $6 directly from

Read & Destroy Press
P.O. Box 1572 Pleasant Valley, New York 12569

Send all orders and inquires to

A reinterpretation of the cover-art will be released with each subsequent print run.

About The Author
Justin Parrinello (b. 1989) is a poet, playwright, visual artist, essayist, and publisher.
His poetry has been published in Home Planet News, Chronogram, Breadcrumb Scabs,
Uni-verse, Spread-Head and The ARTery to name a few.
He is a member and sponsor of the Academy of American Poets and is
the creator and editor of Read & Destroy, an avant-garde publishing outfit dedicated
to printing, posting, publicizing, and circulating poetry, fiction, and art to the public.
He has authored numerous chapbooks under the pseudonym Ludovico De Medici.
Some of those works include “Bodies/Galimatias” (2008) and “The Hair Falls Out in Clumps of Languages Long Dead” (2009).
His poetry, thoughts, musings and babble can be found at
http://www.notadeadtree.blogspot.com

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Read & Destroy @ 2010 Albany Word Fest



The Albany Word Fest will begin Friday April 16th at 5pm at the UAG gallery
and will run until 7am Saturday April 17th.

The event will kick-off with a special youth reading before moving on to the monolithic 12 hour open mic. If you're interested in participating in the open microphone you can sign up at http://www.albanywordfest.com/

Readers get around 15 minutes to perform their work.
There will also be a wide variety of featured readers
performing for much longer on the second day.
Admission is based on donation.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Get Infected!


“Bug” is on open-ended ongoing ”exquisite cadaver”
moving from inbox to inbox.

The "Bug" strikes indiscriminately and demands a single sentence as payment.
The “Bug” will infest both the poet and the layman
and will grow in size with each infestation.

When the “Bug” is satiated it will reveal its true form
for all to revel in splendor and sublimity!

Will you be among the infected?



Frequently Asked Questions

What is an exquisite cadaver/ divine corpse/ cadavre exquis?
A exquisite cadaver is a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled. Each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence.

What is bug?
Bug is an exquisite cadaver that utilizes the internet as its canvas manifesting
in form as an email reply.

How does bug work?
You get bugged (receive an email containing the entry that preceded your infestation)
If you want to be hip, chic and dandy
you then contribute a few lines and send it back to the sender.
In turn the loons at Read & Destroy Laboratories compile the works
in one sitting into a single assemblage and post it. Bugs growth will be broadcast as it develops at on Read & Destroys website.

I think this is f**king stupid and I want nothing to do
with you or this bug thing! What do I do now?

You simply don’t submit.
Additionally,
If you’d like us to remove you from our mailing list,
send us an email with “REMOVE ME NOW’ as the title and consider it done.

What do I write?
A bit of poetry, a philosophical musing, a tasty chunk of prose or fiction, a beautiful thought, some babble…
Pretty much anything goes with the small exception of hate speech of course.
We also prefer things in English but won’t delete entries submitted in foreign languages.

How much do I write?
As much as you desire!
No less than a sentence and
no longer than the sum of William Shakespeare’s Complete Collected Works.


Who’s behind all of this?
The Government.
We’re kidding,
Bug is a literary experiment perpetrated solely by Read & Destroy press.
You can check us out here
http://www.readanddestroyit.blogspot.com
Scroll to the very bottom of the page for our mission statement etc.

I haven't gotten bugged, but would like to participate. What do I do? How do I get involved?
Send us your entry in an email marked "Bug Submission" and we'll see to it that your materials are included. Send your entry in the body of the email, no attachments please.


Sunday, January 3, 2010

UNI-VERSE SNEAK PEAK IV






The fourth sneak peak installment of our ongoing UNI-VERSE anthology has arrived.


Breadcrumb Scabs, editor-in-chief
Lena Judith Drake graces us with her poem "Not B.S."


Visit our storefront at

Saturday, January 2, 2010

ALL SYSTEMS FULLY OPERATIONAL


We're ecstatic to declare that we have recently acquired a brand new Hewlett-Packard laptop and Epson 3-in-1 printer to add to our growing collection.


This marks the end of our three or so month epoch of sluggish post activity

and grueling publication setbacks.


We have alot of great stuff in store for the new year.


The first issue of our unusual magazine The ARTery shall see the light of day quite soon;

As well as a follow up to last years Cerebral Infatuation by Nicole Hargraves,

Doug Smith's Reactor Meltdowns & Butterfly Parasols,

Ludovico De Medici's The Biblioclast,

and of course the remaining segments of UNI-VERSE.


Thank you all once more for reading, for your support of us, verse, and the arts.


Rock on!


- The Loonies at Read & Destroy Laboratories



Tuesday, October 27, 2009

3rd Installment of UNI-VERSE Out Now!


The newest sneak peak installment of our ongoing UNI-VERSE anthology is now out and available for free download.

This installment features Laura Lonshein Ludwig's poem
"Reflections on Life and Art."
Download the Poem (pdf)
Visit our storefront

Monday, October 12, 2009

We Regret To Inform You


To our readers, our fans, our friends and the rest of you keyboard cowboys


We regret to inform you that our command center recently experienced a partial system crash.


We are currently recovering from the afforementioned damage, repairing and relocating our archival works and data to other personal computers for safe keeping

and so publications can resume shortly.


We will continue to accept submissions, manuscripts etc.

both for UNI-VERSE and for other publications.


However, minor to moderate computer errors

have led to publishing setbacks and limbo deadlines.


Expect a little less activity in the coming months as we are working diligently to restore everything to its original state.


UNI-VERSE, The ART-ery and future publications will resume when our systems are fully operational.


We will post updates periodically on our activities and on the publications progress,

so stay tuned!


Thanks for your support and understanding.


Sincerely,
Justin Parrinello

Editor

&

The Folks at
READ & DESTROY

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

UNI-VERSE: NUMBER TWO








The second sneak peak installment of our ongoing anthology is now available for free as a pdf download.


Number Two features the poem "Mohonk Preserve Blues" by Robert Milby.


For the afforementioned download, free poetry and other goodies visit our storefront at

http://stores.lulu.com/readanddestroy

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

UNI-VERSE COMMENCES



The first sneak peak installment of the thirty part anthology is now available for free as a pdf download.

Number One features the poem "14" by Teresa Marta Costa.


For the afforementioned download, free poetry and other goodies visit our storefront at


Sunday, August 16, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Gehenna

READ & DESTROY
is proud to announce the publication

GEHENNA
by Ludovico De Medici


Gehenna can be ordered as an E-book (PDF) for $2.50 at http://stores.lulu.com/deadtrees
OR
You can order a hard copy of the book for $5.00 from
Read & Destroy Press P.O. Box 1572 Pleasant Valley, NY 12569
Send all online orders and inquiries to read.and.destroy@gmail.com



The Busiest Bard in the Underground
A Review of Justin Parrinello’s newest book of poems, Gehenna

Love his verbose paradoxical contortions of unusual wordplay
and literary grotesqueries or not
experimental poet
Justin Parrinello has definitely set the pace for the intriguing,
the bizarre and avant-garde all at rapid-fire speed.

Gehenna, the newest collection under his longstanding pseudonym Ludovico De Medici,
is the follow-up to the eulogistic melancholia of January’s
The Hair Falls Out in Clumps of Languages Long Dead
and
the radical progressive approach to automatic writing and word salad exhibited in May’s
Complete and Utter Rubbish Compiled with a Goal of Generating Cash.

Gehenna is a collection of seven poems narrated in the same cryptic, prophetic tone you’ve come to expect, only this time around Parrinello’s abandoned the concept driven narrative framework of which he’s well known and has instead
set a series of potent linguistic landmines that detonate with power and purpose
one after the other.

The author himself described Gehenna in a interview with
Ellen Connelly of the poetry zine
The Ephemera Exchange as
“A series of night gallery episodes that all have a sort of romantic paranoia in common. There‘s something for everyone, There’s bits about dead sea scrolls,
a crank-lab explosion, the sephira,
booster-shots of flavor-aid laced with cyanide,
and at least one love poem for good measure.”

The book begins with an interesting piece entitled Strawberry Cough,
which manages to frankenstein the historical account of Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination with the squirmy, scaly imagery you’d find in a film by
David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky.

Pieces like You are Dead, Because the Lord is not Your Armor and
Don’t Drink the Kool-Aid help to reinforce Parrinello’s atypical technique and ominous discourse with a slew of occult allusions, and a slapstick tenor of topics ranging from the Tylenol Murders, drug mules, religious excommunication, tales of love after life, and the end of civilization as we know it.

This book is edgy, thought-provoking, and literally bleeds with mood and style.
It packs a plentiful and at times unsettling punch, but by the end of the final poem
Let Them Eat Crack,
it all becomes very clear that this exercise in alienation, surveillance culture,
and loss of god has been the authors intention all along.
Once you’ve finished the book you’ll find yourself wanting to revisit the strange balance of utopian and dystopian imagery and clever language patterning Parrinello’s so artfully devised.
Go with your instincts, you’ll thank me in the long run!

Review by Brian Hill
of the Outsider Writers Collective

Sunday, July 26, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Free Speech by Katie Alekseev

READ & DESTROY
is proud to announce the publication of

by
Katie L. Alekseev
FREE SPEECH is available for $5.00 directly from R&D Press.
Email or orders, inquiries, etc. to
read.and.destroy@gmail.com
or
READ & DESTROY PRESS
P.O. Box 1572 Pleasant Valley, New York 12569

FREE SPEECH is the first volume of a three book set.
Each book deals with a different aspect of American military history, with book one focusing primarily on the inception of the civil rights movement.

The hard copy is printed on 27 lb paper with a glossy cover
and pro-stitch binding.

-BIOGRAPHY-
Katie L. Alekseev

Katie is a certified nurse's assistant by day,
novelist, activist, and performance poet by night.
She lives in Glen Spey, New York with her fiance and sphinx cat Vlad.
She enjoys kayaking, cooking, and travel.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

UNI-VERSE [Update]

It's been several months since we first announced the Uni-verse series,
so it seemed only right to update everyone on the project, its progress and the new deadline.

First and most importantly,
we're pushing the deadline for the website/anthology back to December.
We apologize for this, but promise that the end product will be well worth the wait!

As for the printable material,
the first block of hand-outs is scheduled for an August release.

We're very pleased with the work we've received so far and want to thank everybody immensely for their wonderful words and unwavering support for Read & Destroy
and the rest of the underground literary movement.

Stay tuned!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Complete & Utter Rubbish...

READ & DESTROY
is proud to announce the publication of

Complete & Utter Rubbish Compiled
With a Goal of Generating Cash
by Ludovico De Medici

"Complete & Utter Rubbish"
is a discursive absurdist vers-libre sideshow
showcasing a unique assortment of
literary experiments.
From automatic and disassociative writings to word salad and the
the psychadelic reverse-engineering of altered states of consciousness.


Rubbish is
Guaranteed to uplift and unsettle,
to make many sudden turns to unexpected places,
and if at the very least challenge the stiff formalities and crass classification
of modern free verse.


This tasty batch of oddball wankery can be downloaded
as a free pdf file at
or can be viewed online at
A "Dead Tree" version can be ordered directly from the press!
Send all physical mail orders to
READ & DESTROY PRESS
P.O. Box 1572
Pleasant Valley, New York 12569


You can place orders online by emailing us at
The booklet is printed on 24 lb paper with a color cardstock cover
and saddle-stapled gutter.
This publication as well as hand-outs, broadsides, chappetes, mini-chaps, etcetera...
may be available gratis at select locations.

Check out the authors blog at


Thursday, April 2, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Cerebral Infatuation

READ & DESTROY
is proud to announce the publication of

by Nicole Hargraves

A pensive collection of exquisite phantasmagoric,
yet readily accessible poems.
Poignant and expressive
with brilliant symbolism and subtle pace and delivery.


Cerebral Infatuation is available for $2.00 from
Read & Destroy Press
P.O. Box 1572 Pleasant Valley, NY 12569
You can place orders online by emailing us at
read.and.destroy@gmail.com


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mary Nicole Hargraves was born and raised in too many place to name on this page. A girl with two "first" names and about seven pseudonyms. She'd tell you her age, but a lady never reveals it (18.) This is her first collection of poetry. Her talent consists of whatever "magic" rubs off on her from day to day. And she hopes that one day she will have a better bio than this.

You Can Contact the Author Directly at

NicoleHargraves@gmail.com

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: NEFASTURRIS

READ & DESTROY
Is Proud To Announce The Publication Of

NEFASTURRIS
By Shanazar Edkirmendjian

Available in its entirety free of charge at
The text can also be remotely viewed at

Nefasturris is a collection of surrealistic vignettes and short, concise blurbs peppered with mythology and focusing heavily upon the double-edged swords of love and war.

With the power of his poetry,
Edkirmendjian hopes to bring about recognition to the Armenian Genocide.

A hard dead-tree copy of Nefasturris is available for $2.00
from
Read & Destroy Press
PO Box 1572 Pleasant Valley, NY 12569

or email your orders/inquiries to read.and.destroy@gmail.com

The mini-chap is printed on 24 lb paper
with a cardstock cover and saddle stapled gutter.

This publication as well as hand-outs, broadsides,
chapettes, mini-chaps etcetera etcetera…
may be available gratis at select locations.


Monday, March 9, 2009

UNI-VERSE ANTHOLOGY

THE UNI-VERSE SERIES
[Internet Anthology/ Hand-Out Poetry Initiative 2009-2010]

We’re currently gathering poems, small B&W artwork, micro-fiction, and prose
for a brand new pressing of digital and dead-tree style hand-outs
set to begin an early June circulation.
Poems appearing in UNI-VERSE will be published and made available for free in pdf format.
Read & Destroy will release several sneak peak installments leading up to the final release.
The poems will also be published on the printed page;
Each hand-out will feature a single poem, a bio and or other materials provided by the author.
The hand-outs will be printed on a standard 8 ½ inch X 11 inch piece of 22 lb paper folded in half to create a front-cover, two interior pages, and a rear-cover.

The final product will be circulated in the New York, Maryland, Florida and abroad.

With Read & Destroy all poets, artists, writers and parties involved retain the full
North American publication rights, copyright and creative licenses of their work.

There are no submissions, printing, or materials fees. Period.

All you’ve got to do is send your
poem (1-2 pages, preferably short),
a brief bio (with or without a photo),
and any other materials
(website links, contact info, causes, etc.)
you’d like printed with your hand-out to



We seldom reject and
will personally contact each and every individual who submits material and or shows interest in the UNI-VERSE SERIES.


Have Any Questions, Inquiries , Comments?
You can email the editor (Justin Parrinello) directly at
ouija.goat@gmail.com

Monday, January 26, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: Clumps

is proud to announce the publication of
The Hair Falls Out in Clumps
of Languages Long Dead
by Ludovico De Medici
Written in a period of refrain from the tedious strain and commitment demanded by his up and coming narrative/anti-novel.
And the Hair Falls out in Clumps of Languages Long Dead
features four poems birthed from a state of nerve-racking discomfiture beget by the inability to constrain a clear, concise vision of the hermetic and at times claustrophobic subject matter.
In essence the material in this booklet is the byproduct of six bleak months of writers block.
If that makes sense?

This short collection of poems is available as a pdf file free of charge at
You can also view the contents of the book at this address
http://www.somewhereelse.cjb.in


A “dead tree version” can be ordered directly from us!
Email all orders and inquiries to
read.and.destroy@gmail.com

This book is printed on 24 lb paper
with a color cardstock cover
and saddle-stapled gutter.


This publication as well as hand-outs, broadsides, chapettes, mini-chaps, etcetera etcetera… may be available gratis at select locations.

Check out the authors personal blog at
http://www.notadeadtree.blogspot.com




Thursday, January 8, 2009

PRESS RELEASE: When the Apes & the Serpents Built the Sun


Is Proud to Announce the Publication of


When the Apes & the Serpents Built the Sun
by S.F. Whitney

This collection of poems
is available for $1.50 directly from R&D Press;
email all orders and inquiries to

read.and.destroy@gmail.com


With When the Apes & the Serpents Built the Sun
Buddhist author S.F. Whitney presents to us the
beatific simplicity of nature through
an eloquently written selection of concise verse and thought-provoking koans.


This mini-chap is printed on 24 lb paper with a full color cardstock cover and saddle-staple binding.


This publication as well as hand-outs,
broadsides, chapettes, mini-chaps etcetera etcetera…
may be available gratis at select locations.




Wednesday, December 10, 2008

PRESS RELEASE: Disco Biscuits Boney Legs


Announces the Publication of

DISCO BISCUITS BONEY LEGS
By Jillian Ward
Disco Biscuits Boney Legs features potent sociopolitical verse by Portland native Jillian Ward. Original artwork by Brian Redding.
The mini-chap is printed on 24 lb paper with a color cover and saddle stapled gutter.
This publication as well as
hand-outs, broadsides, and chapettes (mini-chaps)
may be available gratis at select locations.
Disco Biscuits Boney Legs is available for $1.50
from the R&D press; email all inquiries to read.and.destroy@gmail.com
or email the author directly at discobiscuitz.boneylegz@gmail.com
For more information about Jillian's work visit her blog at