NEUTRAL GROUND hosted by Stacey Mangiaracina

with very special guest Professor ARTURO ARTURO, a poet and fiction writer from New Orleans, is a Spoken Word artist, educator, performer, editor and speechwriter who received a Master of Arts degree in Writing from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. degree in English/Journalism from the State University of New York-College at New Paltz. As one of the original Broadside poets of the 1960s, Professor ARTURO has collaborated on a medley of projects with a melange of artists including painters, musicians, photographers, dancers, singers, fire eaters, waiters, cab drivers, and other members of the Great Miscellaneous. He has performed his poetry, fiction, toasts and “jazz poems” on a solo basis or with musical accompaniment at Ebony Square, Vincent’s City Club, the Contemporary Arts Center, the Louisiana Folklife Festival, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the Urban League’s Annual Golden Gala, Ashe Cultural Arts Center, Tulane University’s Amistad Research Center’s Achievement Award Banquet, True Brew Coffeehouse, the Maple Leaf Bar and an array of public/parochial schools, colleges, and churches nationwide. He has also served as Featured Performance Poet at Sweet Lorraine’s jazz club and co-founded the performance series “ARTURO and Joe’s Old Skool Jazz & Poetry Open Mic Night” at the legendary Edgelake Bar (featured in Elvis Presley’s “King Creole”). His work has appeared in such diverse publications as FAHARI, the American Poetry Review, the Shooting Star Review, the Minnesota Review, the Gallery Mirror, EBONY, From a Bend in the River, Mesechabe, Word Up, the Chicory Review, the New Laurel Review, the New Orleans Tribune, We Speak As Liberators, Black Spirits, A Broadside Treasury, and Swapping Stories: Folktales From Louisiana. He has taught at educational institutions ranging from Northeastern University (Visiting Poet for the Africana Studies Center) to Texas Southern University (Writer In Residence). He has served as Academic Instr