# Luis Alberto Ambroggio

Luis Alberto Ambroggio (Córdoba, Argentina, 1945) is an Argentine American poet, independent scholar and writer. Full Member of the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española) and correspondent of the Spanish Royal Academy (Real Academia Española). His works include essays, poetry and translations.
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.

## Early life and education

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.

### College

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.

## Career

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.

### Academic work and writing

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.

## Style and critical reception

Ambroggio writes in various genres: poetry, essays, stories that he keeps in notebooks. In some of his poems he reflects different stages of his life: agnostic, socially committed, loving, a period of exile. In If Dawn Comes: War Songs (Por si amanece: cantos de Guerra) he interprets the theme of violence in war while at the same time emphasizing the culture of peace. In Poems of Loving and Living (Poemas de amor y vida) he incorporates what he calls "a multifaceted love" of son, father, husband. Amateur aviator in Air Man (Hombre del Aire), from an airplane, he meditates on the volatility and the contradictions of existence.
Influenced by F. Nietzsche, César Vallejo, Jorge Luis Borges, Vicente Aleixandre, his poetry has been described by Pulitzer-prize winner Oscar Hijuelos as:
   wise and philosophical. It owns an inimitable cadence, uncommon good sense, and a smoldering depth—for there is fire in Ambroggio's blueness, an earthy eroticism in his lyric register.
According to Gerardo Piña-Rosales, Director of the North-American Academy of the Spanish Language, Ambroggio's work reflects a tradition of Hispanic literature and culture. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky "the essential quality of Luis Alberto Ambroggio's poetry is immediacy: the vividness of images..." Adriana Corda states "Luis Alberto Ambroggio chooses an invisible power, without land nor identity, as a symbol of a deep cultural malaise at a collective level and responsible for refracting the dantesque domaines at the individual level; he parodizes, he shows the irony, he accuses, he limits ..."

## Awards and honors

* He is a member of the North-American Academy of Spanish Language and of the Royal Spanish Academy, Chairman of the Delegation of the American Academy of the Spanish Language in Washington DC, Director of the Ibero-American Academy of Poetry, State Department Cultural Envoy to Nicaragua and El Salvador, Curator of the Smithsonian Institution for literary events, Member Emeritus of the Venezuelan Writers Circle, Deputy Chairman Founder and Honorary Member of the United Nations of the Letters, President of the Poetry and Policy Committee, Vice President of the World Council of Spanish-American Union of Writers, Consul at the World Poets Movement in Washington DC and a member of institutions such as the Academy of American Poets, Canadian Association of Spanish scholars, PEN, Hispanic Literary Cultural Institute; Board member of the Plaza Institute, Washington DC.
* He has received special recognition from the Embassy of Argentina in Washington, DC; the Matias Delgado University of El Salvador; the Board of Culture of Andalusia, the IES, Alcalá de Guadaíra, Seville, Spain; from the Mexican state of Guanajuato; from the Argentine Society of Arts, Sciences and Letters in the Legislature of Córdoba, Argentina
* First prize of the Spanish TV (TVE) for its Poetic Contest on poems about solitude in 2004;
* Recognition of Excellence by the Prometheus Poetry Association, Madrid;
* The International Prize in poetry "Simon Bolivar, the Liberator" 2010
* The Fulbright-Hays scholarship for the anthology from Blue to Red as well as his literary activities in Nicaragua.
* His poetry has been selected for the permanent archives of Latin American Literature at the U.S. Library of Congress and is part of virtual anthologies, magazines, cultural supplements and texts in literature, among them: Passages, Bridges to Literature, Breaking Down Barriers, Keystone and Encuentros. Other notable awards include: Trilce Medal, Universidad de Trujillo, Peru (2016).
* Named Adopted Son of Vallejo's Native city (2017).
* Doctor Honoris Causa (2011), Tel Aviv, Israel.