Difficult Beauty Author:Luis Alberto Ambroggio, Yvette Neisser Moreno, Editor Reading Difficult Beauty, one savors the shadows of [Ambroggio's] words as well as the heat of their emotion. One reads these poems for their gliding notes. It is as though the poet, as pilot, knows that the ship of his verse moves through a realm that is dazzling, fragile, and formidable. Ambroggio beckons us to take flight with him, to ... more »experience the world as he sees it with joy, awe, and striking reverence. --From the Foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winner Oscar Hijuelos I admire the title, which seems to fit with the theme of the poems. . . . The translations seem to be idiomatic and well-crafted, delicate but muscular and direct. There is an appealing space around the words.... [The translations are] quite accomplished and natural. --Gigi Bradford, National Endowment for the Arts Luis Alberto Ambroggio's Difficult Beauty masterfully explores the transitory nature of things the hotel that wipes us from memory as soon as we check out; the shadow self ; the mutability of humankind. Lyrical and instructive, the poems present a world, dominated by dreams, passion, mirrors, legends, and mythologies. Collectively, their powerful lessons serve as agents of change. --Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Poet Laureate of Virginia« less