“Powerlessness, Impotence, Astonishment, and the Need for an Immediate Lie”: The Byproducts of Lopez Mausere

Abstract

The article focuses on the question of national, gender, and religious identity in the poetry and other writings of Wojciech Stamm, also known as Lopez Mausere and Gertruda Jarząbek. Mausere’s affiliation with the Polish Failures Club (Club der Polnischen Versager) in Berlin and the relationships between his biography and literature are examined as well. The author contends that Mausere’s concept of poetry as a genre similar to a joke, anecdote, mistake or deliberate deception, as well as his use of low, slang or colloquial registers of language, reflect Stamm’s belief that the carnivalized upside-down world is more real than the illusion produced by social roles, norms, statuses, hierarchies, and identities. Thus, failure to perform one’s role or normative identity might ultimately prove more creative and meaningful than the proper observance of prevalent social mores.