Langdigtet som problemkompleks: Relationel poesi i Victor Boy Lindholms Guld og Ida Börjels Ma

In this article I present a conceptual understanding of the contemporary long poem. My approach engages with the long poem from a Scandinavian outset, where poetical reading strategies are dominated by a lyrical mode and there are no modern tradition or formal understanding of long poetry. I suggest a mathematically inspired approach where I liken a long poems poetic function to an equation, because reading a long poem concerns questions of the function of parts and whole.
A mathematically conceptual approach to contemporary poetry recognises two distinctly different types of long poem in Victor Boy Lindholm?s Guld (2014) and Ida Börjel?s Ma (2014). Both poems have a lyrical "I" and grapple with the worlds current state of affairs. When viewed as an equation, they form a sum of parts by two different means. I describe them respectively as a polynomial and a convoluted long poem to present their different formal and aesthetic qualities.
The polynomial long poem is characterised by intertwining but separate parts, where the paratactic or rhapsodic composition present the reader with a "negotiation zone" in which different voices and themes are presented alongside each other in a poetical reframing that foreground the relational aspects of otherwise segregated dimensions.
The convoluted long poem is in return characterised by embedded units whose expressions of parts and whole present the reader with an ethical correlate where the sum of predigested qualities reflect both an idealistic wholeness and the process by which it is assembled.
These respectively serial and meshy types of long poetry display a complicated poetic function that either reflect relations to material circumstances (shows the differentiated world) or reformulate them (represents it). In other words my mathematical approach shows the aesthetics of two contemporary long poems in their either relational poetry or correlative poetry.

Keywords: Long poem; relational poetics; poetry and ethics;
Nøgleord: Långdikt;