About Us

The Cilento Poetry International Prize, an award conferred on the greatest poets, writers and artists on the contemporary Italian and world scene, is organised by the Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio of Salerno and Avellino and the Centro Contemporaneo delle Arti, with the patronage and collaboration of the Campania Region, the Municipality of Salerno, the Province of Salerno, the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park Authority, the University of Salerno - DISPS, the Municipality of Salento (SA), the Municipality of Roccadaspide (SA), the Salerno Community Foundation, the Teatro Pubblico Campano and the Uni in Strada Association of Salerno.

The Cilento Poetry Prize, born in 2017 in a small Cilento village, Salento, from an idea of Menotti Lerro (Artistic Director of the project), has distinguished itself since the first edition for the very high prestige of the poets awarded: Davide Rondoni, Milo De Angelis, Franco Loi, Roberto Carifi, Vivian Lamarque, Giampiero Neri, Elio Pecora, Dacia Maraini, Valerio Magrelli and Tiziano Rossi.

The project, whose aim is the growth and enhancement of Italian culture and language abroad, promotes and encourages initiatives, including the internationalisation of the Cilento Poetry Prize, aimed at strengthening awareness of the value of our language, our culture and our cultural, material and immaterial heritage.

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The creator of the Prize

Menotti Lerro

Italian poet, writer, playwright, librettist, aphorist, journalist and literary critic. He graduated in 2004 from the University of Salerno with a degree in Foreign Languages and Literature. He then obtained a Master of Arts from the University of Reading (UK) and a PhD from the University of Salerno. In 2022, he obtained a further degree in Literature (Unipegaso). Lecturer for several years at the Ciels University Institute of Language Mediation in Milan. He teaches English Literature and Culture at the Ciels Campus in Padua.

Education

He studied at Oxford Brookes University and the University of Reading (UK), as well as being a Visiting Scholar at the Universities of Warwick, Reading and Edinburgh (UK). He has given Postgraduate lectures at the Universities of Reading, IULM Milan and the Brera Academy of Fine Arts (where he held a 20-hour workshop on the intersections between Art and Literature). In addition, he was an Expert in the Subject (English Literature) at the Department of Anglistics, University of Salerno.