PRESENTER
Gregory Joseph Firlotte
Arroyo del Rey
Leads Poetry in the Garden
Gregory Joseph Firlotte finds poetry everywhere — in a photograph, a memory, a moment in the garden — and believes anyone can find the words for it.
As a longtime member of both Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, and the New England Poetry Club (co-founded by Robert Frost in 1915), Firlotte was honored by the club when his first book of poetry In This New England debuted in 2020, and later his second poetry book Gilded Summer in 2021. Also in 2021, Firlotte was awarded First Prize by the Peterborough Poetry Project for his “poem within a poem” entitled Two of the Same. On a side note, Firlotte is featured in the multi-award-winning 2023 documentary Studio One Forever in which he discusses the significance of the former Studio One disco’s architectural heritage. His poems are also found in three anthologies published by PoetrySoup.com, the most recent being the 596-page Diverse Voices: The Poetry of Human Rights and the Pursuit of Peace. In December 2025, From WeHo with Love was released, the first-ever coffee table book written by Firlotte documenting 100 years of West Hollywood’s colorful history which entailed six years of research at all the major local institutions and beyond.
WRITER • POET • PHOTOGRAPHER
THE
LYCEUM
LYCEUM
Poetry in the Garden
Feb 20, 2027
Four Saturdays · February 20, May 15, August 14 & November 13, 2027 · 10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. · In the garden, weather permitting. Attendees are requested to bring paper and pen/pencil. Does poetry necessarily have to be poetry? No, this is not a trick question, but actually a daring starting point for Poetry in the Garden, where perceptions of poetry will be explored, challenged and, perhaps, turned upside down. Led by Gregory Joseph Firlotte, writer, collage artist, musician, exhibition designer, design historian and portrait photographer (he was mentored by renowned photographer Helmut Newton in the mid-1980s who taught Firlotte the “art” of seeing the world around him), this lyceum is open to all who simply love poetry and those who may never have written some in earnest, as well. As fate would have it, Firlotte first met Carol Soucek King in 1981 when he worked under her in the editorial department of Designers West magazine -- and they have remained friends ever since. [In fact, Poetry in the Garden was first the title of the exquisitely illustrated book of California women poets edited and published by Jacqueline Miller Backar and which included three of Carol’s own poems and for which Carol held a book signing for Jacqueline in the garden at Arroyo del Rey.] “Poetry is the heart speaking through words,” says Firlotte about the heartfelt way of expressing joy, love, hope, sorrow, anger, and so many emotions and feelings in as few or as many words that emanate from our beings. As poets, we all have something to share with one another. It is an exchange of thoughts and feelings that touch all of us in different ways and at different times. Because writing poetry can be such a personal process, it becomes a transforming experience when poets and those interested in poetry come together. The dynamic at Poetry in the Garden can be invigorating and results can change our approaches to writing as well. So what images, words and feelings can be conjured up together? And how can we enrich each other through this shared experience? “I look forward to meeting every attendee and learning from them,” says Firlotte, “and hearing their voices and their words and writing together to capture the essence, joy and beauty of the Arroyo, nature, the universe and all else that comes to the fore.” One call to make: his role descriptors (writer, collage artist, musician…) sit inside the program intro where Carol wrote them — I left them there rather than pull them up into the bio, so nothing’s cut. If you’d rather lead his bio with those, say so and I’ll move that sentence up.
Poetry in the Garden
Feb 20, 2027
Four Saturdays · February 20, May 15, August 14 & November 13, 2027 · 10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. · In the garden, weather permitting. Attendees are requested to bring paper and pen/pencil. Does poetry necessarily have to be poetry? No, this is not a trick question, but actually a daring starting point for Poetry in the Garden, where perceptions of poetry will be explored, challenged and, perhaps, turned upside down. Led by Gregory Joseph Firlotte, writer, collage artist, musician, exhibition designer, design historian and portrait photographer (he was mentored by renowned photographer Helmut Newton in the mid-1980s who taught Firlotte the “art” of seeing the world around him), this lyceum is open to all who simply love poetry and those who may never have written some in earnest, as well. As fate would have it, Firlotte first met Carol Soucek King in 1981 when he worked under her in the editorial department of Designers West magazine -- and they have remained friends ever since. [In fact, Poetry in the Garden was first the title of the exquisitely illustrated book of California women poets edited and published by Jacqueline Miller Backar and which included three of Carol’s own poems and for which Carol held a book signing for Jacqueline in the garden at Arroyo del Rey.] “Poetry is the heart speaking through words,” says Firlotte about the heartfelt way of expressing joy, love, hope, sorrow, anger, and so many emotions and feelings in as few or as many words that emanate from our beings. As poets, we all have something to share with one another. It is an exchange of thoughts and feelings that touch all of us in different ways and at different times. Because writing poetry can be such a personal process, it becomes a transforming experience when poets and those interested in poetry come together. The dynamic at Poetry in the Garden can be invigorating and results can change our approaches to writing as well. So what images, words and feelings can be conjured up together? And how can we enrich each other through this shared experience? “I look forward to meeting every attendee and learning from them,” says Firlotte, “and hearing their voices and their words and writing together to capture the essence, joy and beauty of the Arroyo, nature, the universe and all else that comes to the fore.” One call to make: his role descriptors (writer, collage artist, musician…) sit inside the program intro where Carol wrote them — I left them there rather than pull them up into the bio, so nothing’s cut. If you’d rather lead his bio with those, say so and I’ll move that sentence up.
Poetry in the Garden
Feb 20, 2027
Four Saturdays · February 20, May 15, August 14 & November 13, 2027 · 10:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. · In the garden, weather permitting. Attendees are requested to bring paper and pen/pencil. Does poetry necessarily have to be poetry? No, this is not a trick question, but actually a daring starting point for Poetry in the Garden, where perceptions of poetry will be explored, challenged and, perhaps, turned upside down. Led by Gregory Joseph Firlotte, writer, collage artist, musician, exhibition designer, design historian and portrait photographer (he was mentored by renowned photographer Helmut Newton in the mid-1980s who taught Firlotte the “art” of seeing the world around him), this lyceum is open to all who simply love poetry and those who may never have written some in earnest, as well. As fate would have it, Firlotte first met Carol Soucek King in 1981 when he worked under her in the editorial department of Designers West magazine -- and they have remained friends ever since. [In fact, Poetry in the Garden was first the title of the exquisitely illustrated book of California women poets edited and published by Jacqueline Miller Backar and which included three of Carol’s own poems and for which Carol held a book signing for Jacqueline in the garden at Arroyo del Rey.] “Poetry is the heart speaking through words,” says Firlotte about the heartfelt way of expressing joy, love, hope, sorrow, anger, and so many emotions and feelings in as few or as many words that emanate from our beings. As poets, we all have something to share with one another. It is an exchange of thoughts and feelings that touch all of us in different ways and at different times. Because writing poetry can be such a personal process, it becomes a transforming experience when poets and those interested in poetry come together. The dynamic at Poetry in the Garden can be invigorating and results can change our approaches to writing as well. So what images, words and feelings can be conjured up together? And how can we enrich each other through this shared experience? “I look forward to meeting every attendee and learning from them,” says Firlotte, “and hearing their voices and their words and writing together to capture the essence, joy and beauty of the Arroyo, nature, the universe and all else that comes to the fore.” One call to make: his role descriptors (writer, collage artist, musician…) sit inside the program intro where Carol wrote them — I left them there rather than pull them up into the bio, so nothing’s cut. If you’d rather lead his bio with those, say so and I’ll move that sentence up.
