Interviews – March 21, 2026 – Kern Poetry ZOOM Open Mic
Spectacular Saturday
Interviews with Viki Radden and Christopher Nielsen
By Carla Joy Martin
—Spectacular Saturday Zoom Open Mic , March 21, 2026.
A relaxed, intimate evening transpired as we gathered from the comfort of our homes at Zoom Spectacular Saturday on March 21, 2026. Participants were Christopher Nielsen, Irene Sinepole, Christopher Craddock, Viki Radden, Portia Choi and Carla Joy Martin.
We asked two of our poets, Viki Radden and Christopher Nielsen, to share their work and provide some background information about their poems. Both of their poems and comments are below.
Viki Radden blew us away with this narrative poem that had us on the edge of our seats:
Experience is Negotiable
In the moments before death, do our lives flash before us,
a continuous loop of faces, colors and shapes?
Mine did.
Before I died, I saw my childhood: Holding my mother’s hand
as we crossed a Portland street. Eating ice cream cones
at the beach. The middle part of my life had just begun.
I died at 34, while what might have been–age 40, 60, 80–
went unwritten.
I didn’t want to die face down in the snow. My lips
and fingertips purple.
At the top of the world, I opened my arms wide, standing,
unsteady, on the first-floor of heaven. The curvature of earth
spread out before me. I had reached my goal. The gods granted me
this gift. They said, just for this moment, this expanse belongs
to you. Yet, atop Mt. Everest, as I scanned the graying skies
towards Tibet, towards India, all the way back to Portland,
I was dying.
I left my trinkets at the peak, the same as all the other climbers–
a framed picture of my mother and locks of my hair, wrapped
in a yellow ribbon.
What is the return on discomfort?
What is the yield on suffering?
A marketing executive should know these things. But all I knew
was that statistics describe the ordinary. The predictable. I was
the exception to the rule. I knew Mt. Everest would applaud my
courage. Dismiss my lack of expertise. Who needs experience
when confidence conquers all obstacles? My family didn’t
understand. You want to climb the tallest mountain in the world?
You can’t even climb the three flights of stairs to your apartment
without stopping to catch your breath.
But I explained to them: I watched the Netflix documentary.
I saw other people–lesser people–explaining how tenacity pulled
them up those ropes to the sky. How their belief in themselves
gave them strength to cross icy crevasses, plant their ice picks
and crampons. Every step, every half-step, a triumph.
It was true—-I spent my weekends watching videos, eating popcorn,
yet I imagined myself achieving the impossible. My sister reminded me
of the gym membership she bought me. I went a few times–decided
I didn’t need it. I could compensate for my two years of sedentary life
by going to Nepal, spending four weeks acclimating on long walks
in the foothills, listening to stories of those who had gone before me.
That peak was my destiny. Greatness requires sacrifice.
Experience is negotiable.
Even my guide was amazed at my attention to detail. My impeccable
sense of judgment. Seeing an oncoming storm in my mind’s eye,
hours before it arrived. I had the wisdom to listen to each of his instructions.
Until they began to impinge on my confidence. I was not going to allow
him to diminish the perfection of my unfolding plans.
So I began to climb. I outpaced even experienced climbers. I defied
everyone’s low expectations. Until Camp Three. 24,000 feet. For some reason,
my breathing became labored. My guide noticed my cough. The sputum,
a sickly yellow, at first. The next morning, it was pink.
Your lungs are filling with fluid, my guide advised. You must turn back.
Turn back? When I was so close?
I’m going to push on, I told him. I kept climbing. Into the Death Zone.
At 26,000 feet, the air–isn’t really air at all. In my tent, I vomited through
the night. My fingers and toes went numb. The next morning, I stumbled
through the camp in short sleeves and a windbreaker, alarming the Sherpas.
The Australian team whispered, she looks like she’s drunk. My guide said
I had to eat before the push for the summit. I managed to keep down
a handful of freeze-dried blueberries.
I fell hours behind the others on the rope line. They said I was creating
a bottleneck. At dawn, when I no longer needed the light from my headlamp,
I fumbled with the ON/OFF switch. I lost my spare gloves. I couldn’t hold
onto my water bottle. It tumbled off an ice cliff. I tried to retrieve it. My guide
had to restrain me from stepping off that cliff.
Apparently, my brain was
swelling. No oxygen was flowing to my vital organs. At times, I was on
my hands and knees, clawing my way to the summit. I left my trinkets.
Then I sat down. I could hear what the other climbers and my guide
were thinking. They said I was confused. That I was hallucinating.
That wasn’t true. I was surrounded at the summit by family
and my friends from the Netflix show. They said, let us take you
by the hand. Lead you away from this place of icy wind and death.
Having achieved my sublime accomplishment, I fell on my face
into the snow, my head facing skyward. I thought I was still climbing.
I believed I could climb forever. My guide stayed with my body
for two hours, until his own oxygen ran out. He dragged me downhill.
150 pounds of dead weight. The crew at Base Camp, their voices
crackling on the radio, told him to stop. To leave me and save himself.
But is it true what they said about belief?
That what I believed,
was not what the mountain required?
I stayed, frozen, in the Death Zone for more than two weeks. Even in
death, I performed a vital service. I continued helping others.
My body, never decomposing, was a signpost to climbers just a few vertical miles from the summit. Keep
going straight. You will see the body in the purple climbing suit
on your right. Who knows how many I guided in their quest
for greatness?
My mother and sister flew all the way from Portland to retrieve my body.
Just as I wished, I was cremated. They carried me all the way to Varanasi.
Scattered my ashes in the Ganges.
A small flotilla of yellow marigolds encircled me.
Carried me out to sea.
Q. What was the backstory to your epic poem?
A. I just finished it two days ago—it was one of those poems that just flowed out, mostly, I suppose, because I had watched about 50 YouTube videos of climbers dying on Mt. Everest.
Lately, I’ve just wanted to write about hubris, but I couldn’t find the right vehicle for it. I just kept drawing blanks. Then after watching this woman’s story, it all became clear to me, how to write it, how to inhabit her voice…
Christopher Nielsen read two thought-provoking poems that presented unique and memorable images:
Weight of Lightness
Maybe it weighs
next to nothing
but has substance.
What is lightness?
In photo
or a painting
that sheds light on
illuminated brightly.
beyond shadows,
soft blends.
Agility of movement
or humor
to detonate a bad situation.
Stroke on a needed shoulder
a touch of friendship.
With love
on a soul that is empty.
Give what you have
or make what you can.
The lightness
can be felt worldwide.
Or personal
given quietly.
Share lightness
makes lives better.
–
Southeast farthest corner of the graveyard
Totally farthest corner
in trapezoidal fashion
lay of the land
in this cemetery.
Southeast gravestone
couldn’t read a name
or blessed words
partially unmarked.
Must have some meanings.
Why is the marker there?
Does anybody know where it is?
Belongs to someone
wonderment of whoever.
Any visitors
callers of grief
no souls or mourners?
Lonesome spot
in the lonely corner
just some dust
tufts of bare grass.
Whispers
blew away.
Q. What inspired you, Christopher, to write these poems?
A. On the first poem — “Weight of Lightness” — Thought of this poem after seeing/hearing a song called “The Weight Of Death”. Then I thought of the weight of lightness.
On the second poem, — “Southeast farthest corner of the graveyard” — there are three known cemeteries in the Nampa, Idaho area. Two of them have very square or rectangular symmetry areas. Usually a more geometric pattern in that way.
The third cemetery has areas angular on the sides that look like trapezoid shapes. Seems unusual. I drive down the road by it and have wondered why the gravestones follow that unusual pattern. In the very southeast corner, there is only one gravestone in that corner. This spurred my poem.
Q. What similarities/differences between Idaho and Bakersfield have struck you as you become acclimated to your new environs in Nampa? What have you noticed about Idaho that inspires you as a poet?
A. Idaho has less population and has abundance of nature. More snow than Bakersfield for sure. One thing I appreciate in Idaho, there are many greenbelts for most neighborhoods. Many green paths to venture with good walks. The Boise River goes through Boise and it is quite picturesque. It flows all year long. Walking through the trees, the river, and also in the mountains, gives much nature to inspire poetry.
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