I’m a Wild Seed

De La Cruz’s limber, playful debut collection takes on intersectional identity and is informed by her experiences growing up as an androgynous, Xena-loving, Puerto Rican–Dominican Black girl. She pulls from sources ranging from Stonewall history to the writings of Melissa Harris-Perry and Kimberlé Crenshaw, but also taps into current conversations about race, gender, and sexuality. For example, she redraws the much-circulated meme of a guy’s head turning at the sight of a cute young woman, to the dismay of the woman whose hand he’s holding; in De La Cruz’s version, she’s the “guy,” and her boyfriend is perplexed by a female passerby’s ability to distract her. De La Cruz states her thesis in nearly academic terms—“Patriarchy thrives under strict gender norms, and toxic masculinity stems from patriarchy.... Gender and sex are not interchangeable and anyway, WE’VE MADE IT ALL UP!”—which she offsets with a cartoony style, bright colors, and silly details (her avatar does yoga in the table of contents, and farts in downward dog). The stronger sections are the most personal, as when she mines her experience of coming out to her self-absorbed mother. De La Cruz may still be finding her voice in this patchwork assortment, but the wit and exuberance found here marks her as a worthy new artist. (Feb.)