See here for more on the real one and here for more on the fictional one he became, by the end of the process of writing the EUOIA project! This includes the full version of the bibliographical note that Patricia Farrell wrote for the project (that was shortened for the book publication).
Read more about the European Union
of Imaginary Authors here and here. All the collaborators are
accessible via links here.
Accompanied by biographical
notes, the poets, Sheppard included, grow in vividness until they seem to possess lives of their
own; they are collected now in Twitters
for a Lark, published by Shearsman.
I see these two books as the first two parts of a fictional
poetry trilogy. Perhaps the third part should involve the fictional Robert Sheppard...I did announce in Twentieth Century Blues that I would fragment into many personalities and that seems to have been echoed by the problematics of the EUOIA. I have a parenthetical phrase in the introduction to Twitters that says '(himself one of the fictional poets by the time
the project concluded)', which I think is quite neat, and points towards realising something like the scenario mooted in Twentieth Century Blues. Though I actually doubt I've the energy to carry that off to its conclusion. But I do want to write a 'third part'.
