Biographical note

Rocco Scotellaro was born in 1923 in Tricarico, in the impoverished southern region of Lucania. When he died at the age of thirty, he had published poems in regional and national magazines and was beginning to attract significant critical attention and acclaim. In the year after his death a first collection, Ae fatto giorno, selected by Carlo Levi from over four hundred poems in his possession, was awarded both the Pellegrino and Viareggio prizes. Further selections were edited by Franco Fortini in 1974 and Franco Vitelli in 1978 and 1982. Recognition of Scotellaro's importance and achievement came in 2004 with Mondadori's publication in its Oscar Series of the complete poems. Allen Prowle was awarded the Times/Stephen Spender Prize 2007 for his translations of poems by Attilio Bertolucci. Previously, The Lincolnshire Association commissioned his translations of poems by Paul Verlaine to commemorate the centenary of the poet's residence in Stickney in 1875. A collection of his own poems, Landmarks, appeared in 1977.