The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-Handed Poems
| Author | Michael Ondaatje |
|---|---|
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Publisher | Wingbow Press, Vintage International |
| Awards | Governor-General Literary Award - Poetry (1970) |
| ISBN |
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left-Handed Poems is a verse novel by Michael Ondaatje, published in 1970. It chronicles and interprets important events in the life of William Bonney, aka Billy the Kid, and his conflict with Sheriff Pat Garrett.
The book presents a series of poems not necessarily in chronological order which fictionalize and relate Bonney's more famous exploits, after the end of the Lincoln County War. The narrative includes his relationship with John and Sallie Chisum, his formation of a gang with Tom O'Folliard and Charlie Bowdre, his standoff with Garrett in Stinking Springs, his arrest and escape from Lincoln, New Mexico, his escape and the ensuing murder of James Bell and Robert Ollinger, and finally his death at the hands of Garrett.
The book was written by Ondaatje in the late 1960s in Canada, after he emigrated from Ceylon to England and further relocated to Quebec in order to attend college. It was initially published by Anansi Press in 1970, and reprinted in 1979 by Wingbow Press, the printing arm of the now-defunct distributor Bookpeople. Its most recent reprint was in 2009 by Vintage International.
On its release, the volume received largely positive reviews. Most notably, it received the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry in 1970 from the Canadian Arts Council. Karyl Roosevelt also praised the book in the New York Times, calling it "a good little book, carefully crafted and thoroughly literate." In a more sober 1974 review, Phoebe Adams wrote that the book is "[a] bizarre project altogether, accomplished with a sporadic brilliance that merits attention." When the book was given another print in 2009, one reviewer wrote that ""The Collected Works of Billy the Kid" already feels like a modern classic, the book in which a great writer first learned to do a trick with a knife." There was some negative reaction, however. John Diefenbaker, a former Canadian prime minister, was reported to have "hated the award-winning book and called a news conference to denounce it." The publicity of the event helped boost sales, however, and in the end the book is widely acknowledged to be a good first effort, and indeed it was: Ondaatje would go on to write another award-winning novel, The English Patient, and several others.
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