The spoken-word evening, however, did showcase precisely what the best poetry slammers do: Bring their verse to life so that the poem becomes a performance, recited in a rhythm that is almost sung, allowing the speaker to ride words to the deepest valleys of emotion and then scale verbal heights.
There are blizzards of words, some made up, flashing and colliding; roulette wheels of words; seasick words riding a swell; words slicing the walls like zips.
These distinguish between cart horses (two words), pack horses (two words), riding horses (three words), horses for breeding (three words, male and female), horses suitable for royalty and aristocracy (five words, of which three were mainly used in poetry), and warhorses (one word).
The series is riding growing word of mouth and is fed by viewers catching up with the drama's first season, as well as readers who have continued to buy, in large numbers, the novels the series is based on.
Carlo Rizzi, the conductor, generally kept things moving in both senses of the word, riding over the occasional sour tone from the orchestra.
"Ladies," Tomika said, "just remember that what happens in Miami stays in Miami!" Mr. Beckford laughed then, and before riding off, said, "Word".
This makes speaking the lines especially difficult, and actors who ride the words' sparkling surface deliver only half the story.
Watching this crisis roll on towards its fourth year, I want to ride over words like intractable with calculated action.
Sony, which released "The Walk," can ride good word-of-mouth in the weeks ahead, but it will have to overcome some daunting precedents to have a hit.
$60 trillion of the public's wealth is riding on those words.
