The Autobiography Of Absence is the first full-length collection of poetry by Ephraim Nehemiah. The collection is a chilling, compassionate, and challenging tour-de-force that investigates the lineage of distance that continues to persist in parent-child relationships and the void it leaves in Black fathers – a little discussed but hyper-present reality in contemporary American society. These poems interrogate the roles the court system, personal histories, and the social constructions of race and gender play in normalizing the estrangement of fathers from their children. Here, Nehemiah describes this dynamic as a “haunting” that is not only felt by the children left in the wake of a parent’s absence, but also by those forced into the footsteps of parents who were removed before them. The Autobiography of Absence is a necessary and brave exploration of vulnerability, grief, discovery, and truth from the perspective of fathers who are sadly far from alone.