Studying plasma behavior or assisting the ITER Central Integration & Engineering team managing the project's configuration control might be their profession... but passion speaks when it comes to poetry. Early Thursday morning, two dozen ITER employees followed an invitation to the 3rd Intercultural Breakfast organized by the Agence ITER France celebrating the "Spring of Poetry."

This unpretentious, stand-up event once more underligned the multi-national facet of the ITER enterprise, as Krystyna Marcinkiewicz recited "The Locomotive", a poem by Polish poet Julian Tuwim, followed by Sopan Pande who recited two poems from Marathi poet and playwriter Kusumagraj.

There were many more poems from Korea, Japan, Russia, China, the United States, and a fable from France to listen to. But it was the Italian contribution "Ancora sulla strada di Zenna" by Vittorio Sereni, presented by Elena Carnacina from the ITER Directorate for Tokamak , which got the standing ovation that morning.

Although it is probably safe to state that most of the audience was not familiar with the language of Dante Alighieri or Petrarch, the pure sound of a poem spoken in Italian had the power to touch the soul—no matter which nationality. Recited in Italian, forgive me, perhaps even the ITER Plant Description Document would sound like a poem...