Luis Alberto Ambroggio

His poems have been translated into English, French, Italian, Rumanian, Mandarin, Korean, Catalan, Hebrew, Portuguese, Japanese, Turkish and are recorded in the Archives of the Hispanic-American Literature of the U.S. Library of Congress.

• Name — Luis Alberto Ambroggio • Born — 11 November 1945 • Birthplace — Cordoba, Argentina • Awards — Prometeo, Poesía (Madrid), Simón Bolívar, el Libertador 2010

Born in Rio Tercero (Ctalamochita, its Indian name), between the Pampas and the mountains of the province of Cordoba, Argentina, Luis Alberto Ambroggio is the son of Dr. Ernesto Pedro Ambroggio, dentist, founder of one of the first institutes of Orthodontics in Cordoba and Perla Lutereau de Ambroggio, philosophy professor at the National and Catholic Universities of Cordoba, a "recognized and feared teacher, anti-dictatorship, who was expelled from the campus by mounted police, a woman of deep faith and at the same time admirer of Nietzsche, she certainly has had a decisive influence on the personality and calling of her son." He attended primary school in Cordoba and high school in Rosario. Before the age of fifteen he had written poems and won poetry contests. His mother, noticing this ability, gave him an anthology of César Vallejo; this would mark the beginning of his career in poetry.

During his college years he continued his interest in Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo and then he was attracted by the writings of Racine, Voltaire, Kant, and Nietzsche. Hence, his first publication was a philosophical textbook of epistemology written in collaboration with his mother. Today his philosophical readings are more inclined to the thoughts of Ricoeur and Wittgenstein. In Argentina, he received his doctoral degree in philosophy and completed other doctoral studies in social science at The Catholic University of America. He also has an MBA from Virginia Tech.

He came to the United States in 1967. Under the Leadership Program of the United Nations, he served as an intern in the U.S. Congress and then on the White House Cabinet Committee for the advancement of the Hispanic population during the Nixon administration. He also worked at the Pan American Development Foundation and at the Embassy of Argentina in Washington, DC. In 1976 Ambroggio founded the company, Aerospace International Marketing (AIM), which he sold in 2001 and would continue as the Chief Advisor to the Board until 2008.

Ambroggio has given recitals and lectures at over 30 universities. As a member of the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Florida Gulf Coast University, Ambroggio has taught seminars and lectured on various topics including the art of writing poetry. He has translated poems by William Carlos Williams, DH Lawrence, Dylan Thomas and Robert Pinsky. He has published twenty books of poetry, four of which are bilingual, a book on the art of writing poetry, a collection of short stories, and a book of essays.

As a critic and essayist he has specialized in the poetry of the United States written in Spanish on issues related to bilingualism, identity and critical studies of renowned poets such as Borges, Vallejo, Gabriela Mistral and Dario that have contributed to his appointment as Honorary Member of Ruben Dario Cultural Heritage Institute. The following are some of his most representative essays: • "Thomas Jefferson and the Spanish Language: Praxis, vision, and political philosophy", en • "Spanish is my land." La Tolteca (Otoño 2014): 54-55 • "Rubén Darío y Antonio Machado: dos poetas, dos continentes, tres poemas y un camino" ("Ruben Dario and Antonio Machado: Two Poets, Two Continents, Three Poems and a Road") in Fondo Documental de Prometeo: • "Rubén Darío y César Vallejo: unidos en un poema 'El Retablo'." ("Ruben Dario and Cesar Vallejo: United in a Poem 'The Manger'.") Revista Carátula • "Convergencias y divergencias: Rubén Darío y Pablo Antonio Cuadra." ("Convergence and Divergence: Ruben Dario and Pablo Antonio Cuadra.") Fondo Documental de Prometeo

• Tezanos-Pinto, Rosa, ed. El exilio y la palabra. La trashumancia de un escritor argentino-estadounidense (Exile and the Word. Trashumance of an Argentine-U.S. Writer). Buenos Aires: Editorial Vinciguerra, 2012. • Zeleny, Mayra, ed. El cuerpo y la letra. Poética de Luis Alberto Ambroggio (The Body and the Letter. The Poetry of Luis Alberto Ambroggio). New York: North-American Academy of Spanish Language: 2008. *

• Todos somos Whitman/We are all Whitman. Arte Público Press, Univ. Of Houson, 2016. • Estados Unidos Hispano (Hispanic United States). Nueva York, Colección Dorada, Long Island al Día Ed.: 2015. • En el jardín de los vientos. Obra poética 1974-2014 (In the Garden of the Winds. Poetic Corpus 1974-2014). Critical edition published by the North American Academy of the Spanish Language, New York: 2014, elected by Infobae as one of the best books of the year. • Cuentos de viaje para siete cuerdas y otras metafísicas (Travel stories for seven strings and other metaphysics). Indianapolis: Palibrio Ed.: 2013. • Arqueología del viento / The Wind's Archeology. Barcelona-Mexico: El Vaso roto Ediciones Broken, 2011. (Winner of the 2013 International Latino Best Book Award for its bilingual version). • La desnudez del asombro (The Nakedness of Wonder). Madrid: Ediciones Lord Byron, 2009. • Los tres esposos de la noche (The Night's Three Husbands). San Jose, Costa Rica: La Casa de la poesía, 2005. • Los habitantes del poeta (The Inhabitants of the Poet). Washington DC: Horizonte 21 Publishers, 1997. • Oda Ensimismada (Ode in and of Myself). Buenos Aires: Alicia Gallegos, 1994. • Poemas de amor y vida (Poems of Loving and Living). Los Angeles: Puerta Press, 1987. Among the anthologies that he has compiled are: • Labios de Arena (Lips of sand). Embajada de los Estados Unidos de América Managua, Nicaragua: 2014. • Antología. Festival Latinoamericano de Poesía. Ciudad de Nueva York 2012. Carlos Aguasaco, Luis Alberto Ambroggio, Karla Coreas, eds. Nueva York: Urpi Editores, 2012. • De azul a rojo (From Blue to Red). Nicaraguan Poetic Voices of the XXI century. Managua: Embassy of the United States and Nicaraguan Writers Center, 2011. • Al pie de la Casa Blanca (At the Footsteps of the White House). Hispanic Poets from Washington, DC., Luis Alberto Ambroggio and Carlos Parada Ayala, eds. New York: North-American Academy of the Spanish Language, 2010.