if you are interested in experimental poetry or billy the kid, this book is for you, but since i know nothing about either i found this super jumbled and confusing

It was really well written but it got to the point that it was too fragmented for me to make sense out of anything. I thought the prose parts were pretty good but the poems really seemed a bit too far beyond me. I also enjoyed the use of different forms of media in the story but I really just saw it as an attempt that just didn't seem to work the way the author wanted it. Or else it just went way over my head, which is entirely possible.

I don't really know how to rate this as it was one of the oddest books I've ever read. A lot to unpack in terms of language, form, images, but not the most compelling story.

I was wrong at first to say this wasn't heat. After a second reading, this is confirmed heat. But you must not listen to the professor who says to read the afterword first! The afterword is the afterword for a reason, and, when read as a forward, ruins the setup of the book!

I think I've read this book a hundred times. A poetry teacher in high-school introduced me to it. I'd never read anything so gritty and sensual and amusing. When I was a child I used to play Frank and Jessie James with my best-friend; Billy the Kid was one of our imaginary pals. So reading him come to life on the page in Ondaatje's slim volume blew open my idea of what one was allowed to write about. I attended Glendon College because it said on the back of the book that was where Ondaatje taught. A terrible lecturer, my favourite writer. I'll never forget him complaining about the sound of candies being unwrapped during class.

3,5
Dekompozice a post-moderna level 10 tisic na druhou. Asi je to víc poezie nez próza, ale kdo ví.
Některé básně za plných 5 jiné za chabé dvě hvězdy. S delším textovými fragmenty to bylo obdobné.
Jako jednohubka fajn, ale za půl roku už si z toho nebudu nejspíš pamatovat nic.

what am i missing here? big fan of ondaatje's 'in the skin of a lion' and the ubiquitous 'the english patient,' but this piece of... 'huh-wha?!?,' no, not so much. it's more william shatner's 'transforrmed man' than william bonney, outlaw extraordinaire. poorly done, staccato, wild west slam poetry, dressed up as avant garde theatrical musings. people are actually staging this dreck, at a mediocre high school puppet theater near you! this is a prime example of why we used to have insane asylums. some ideas just don't need to be committed to paper or expressed in public. unless you're one of the few who's gullible or 'red pill' enough to find the hidden deeper meaning easter eggs, give this one a pass.

This is one of the stranger works of fiction I've read, and I didn't entirely get it or figure out the free-flowing prose and poetry of what was going on. But I did get something of a moody, at times visceral and violent, definitely strange, experience of the Old West through a particular poet/novelist's vision. One of the more interesting visions of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, alongside Sam Peckinpah's mournful 1973 masterpiece.

Made it about half way through. The book just did not connect with me. I did not believe it, hard as I tried. However, I am a big fan of the legend of Billy the Kid, but this work left me disappointed and adrift. After looking now at two of his books, it is clear I am not an Ondaatje fan even if he is an anointed one.

A melancholy chapbook of some sort- a hybrid of prose, poetry, songs, and ballads that flesh out the life of one of America's most controversial outlaws. Mr. Ondaatje writes with heartstopping gorgeousness that when you finish this, or any other work of prose he's written, you find yourself feeling exhilarated and heartbroken at the same time. He is a genius.

The Collected Works of Bill the Kid is a work of fiction that doesn’t read like a story, but is more an amalgam of accounts, photographs, poetry, and vignettes. Ondaatje’s descriptive prose and well structured sentences transports you back in time and touches all your sense. This was beautifully written, and I look forward to reading more books by this author.

“I’ll be with the world till she dies.”

(how did he know??)