The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid: Left Handed Poems is a 1970 novel by Michael Ondaatje. Written in verse rather than prose, the novel is a formally experimental and fictionalized retelling of the life of gunman and outlaw Billy the Kid, an infamous figure of the American Old West who committed eight murders before dying in a gunfight at the age of twenty-one. The verse moves back and forth in time, touching on its subject’s dual identities as Billy the Kid and as his given identity, William Bonney. During his violent crusades, Billy the Kid’s main adversary was the lawman and sheriff Pat Garrett; he ultimately died at Garrett’s hand in 1881. Ondaatje writes from Billy the Kid’s perspective, delivering a series of vignettes in free verse that compel his audience to empathize with the outlaw’s decisions and emotions. Known for challenging the literary archetype of the Wild West outlaw being a noble vigilante, the novel suggests that impulses like selfishness and malice also played important roles.

Though fictionalized, the events of the novel touch on Billy the Kid’s most famous exploits, most of which came after his pivotal role in the Lincoln County War, which inaugurated his twenty-first year of life. In this war, Billy the Kid fought for one of two rival factions to secure control of dry goods and cattle trade in part of New Mexico. The experience established Billy the Kid’s reputation as an outlaw and was formative to his self-identification as such. The book also covers his first encounter with Charlie Bowdre and Tom O’Folliard, with whom he started his famous gang; and his relationship with the well-known cattle trading family Sallie and John Chisum. It details one of Billy the Kid’s most dramatic standoffs: that with Pat Garrett in Stinking Springs, after which he was arrested and thrown in jail in Lincoln, New Mexico. He escaped and murdered two other men, Robert Olinger and James Bell, before dying in a gunfight against Garrett.

Billy the Kid was loyal to no one other than himself; one section describes his betrayal and killing of O’Folliard on Christmas Eve. Some passages shift from Billy the Kid’s point of view to those of his many enemies and few friends. Through these disparate perspectives, Ondaatje deconstructs the concept of the “outlaw,” showing how none of its definitions or associations perfectly capture who Billy the Kid was. In several scenes, Billy is shown engaging in a vibrant and happy social life with individuals such as members of the Chisum family—especially Sally, who remembers him as charming, gentle, and clever. He was often invited to stay at the Chisums’ ranch. So close was he with the family that he felt comfortable introducing them to his eventual fiancé, Angela D. Intermingled with these positive relationships are hints of darkness. Billy the Kid’s friendship with Sallie Chisum died off when he shot her sick cat, traumatizing her.



The novel culminates with Billy’s perspective on the aftermath of his capture by Garrett. He thinks of Garrett as a prodigious assassin, recalling how he tethered Billy and his followers to their horses and led them through the desert to jail. He describes in vivid detail the pain of being immobilized under the searing sun. By the time they make it to jail, Billy the Kid and his men are in extreme pain and hallucinating. Billy recovers, gives a brief interview to a publication called the Texas Star, and escapes. He hides at a friend’s house, but Garrett successfully tracks him down a final time, killing him in the ensuing standoff.

Ondaatje’s novel is attentive to Billy’s broken moral compass and distorted views of reality. He paints him as a deeply unreliable narrator, whose story can only be accurately recorded with the help of the people whom Billy encountered through life. The novel recasts the “outlaw” figure in terms of moral and narrative distortion and unreliability.