Cilento Poetry Prize (Italian: Premio Cilento Poesia) is an Italian literary prize founded in 2017^[1][2] by the poet, writer and literary critic Menotti Lerro and awarded annually, in the month of August, in Salento Cilento—"The Poetry Village".^[3]

Criteria for nomination

The prize is awarded to "a poet who, during the preceding year, has published a collection of poems already considered relevant to be part of the history of literature, or the same prize is conferred to a distinguished poet for the importance of his/her career".^[4] It is considered as the flagship of the Empathic Movement (Empathism).^[5]

Prizes (some cases equal-first) have been awarded as follows

• 2017 – Davide Rondoni^[6]
• 2018 – Milo de Angelis^[7]
• 2019 – Franco Loi and Roberto Carifi (special winter edition at Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera)^[8]
• 2019 – Giampiero Neri and Vivian Lamarque^[9]
• 2020 – Elio Pecora^[10]
• 2021 – Dacia Maraini^[11]
• 2022 – Valerio Magrelli^[12] and Tiziano Rossi^[13][14]
• 2023 – Maurizio Cucchi and Najwan Darwish^[15][16]

Cilento Prizes for criticism have been awarded as follows

• 2018 – Francesco D'Episcopo^[17]
• 2019 – Umberto Curi^[9]
• 2020 – Remo Bodei (posthumous)^[18]

Cilento Prizes for art have been awarded as follows

• 2023 – Omar Galliani and Antonello Pelliccia^[16][15]

Cilento Prizes for music have been awarded as follows

• 2023 – Franco Mussida and Bernardo Lanzetti^[15][16]

Cilento Prizes for narrative have been awarded as follows

• 2023 – Diego De Silva and Maria Rita Parsi^[16][15]

Institutional sponsorship

The Cilento Poetry Prize is officially supported by: Ministero della Cultura, Regione Campania, Provincia di Salerno, Comune di Salerno, Soprintendenza Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio Salerno e Avellino, Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni, Università degli Studi di Salerno - DISPS.^[19]

• In 2022 the Prize has been financed by the Italian Ministry of Culture for €140,500^[20] to let it become International.^[21][22]