'Sin Eater' is William Reichard's fourth collection of poetry and is the shadow companion to his third, 'This Brightness' (Mid-List Press 2007). Reichard began 'Sin Eater' as he was writing 'This Brightness,' finding that as he explored the multiple literal and metaphorical permutations of light, the shadow's afterimage became visible. The poems of 'Sin Eater' are similar to photographic double images one positive, the other negative. Every love poem has aspects of hate, every war poem holds in its core the seed of peace. The overriding theme is one of finding balance in our lives between public brightness and private shadow. The title of the book comes from a funeral rite. Practiced in England and Scotland, and surviving into the twentieth century in Wales, the ritual was performed by a beggar summoned by a family when a loved one died. The sin eater would pray over the deceased, then eat and drink a meal prepared by the family.

This act of consumption would remove the sins from the dead person and transfer them to the sin eater. The man or woman who performed this ceremony was usually regarded as an outcast or pariah, because the consumption of the sins of others meant that the Sin Eater's soul was irrevocably damned.