The 5150 Poems (Nine Mile, April 2022) is the 12th poetry collection by Sandra McPherson, professor emerita of English. The "5150" in the title refers to a section of California law which allows an adult who is experiencing a mental health crisis to be involuntarily detained for a 72-hour psychiatric hospitalization and was inspired by her own experiences.

Before joining the faculty at Davis, she taught for four years in the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, was Holloway Lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley, and conducted several years of classes for the Oregon Writers Workshop/Pacific Northwest College of Art.  She has taught creative writing and poetry-as-literature courses at UC Davis since 1985.  In 1999 she founded Swan Scythe Press, a poetry chapbook publishing venture. As of spring 2005 Swan Scythe Press http://www.swanscythe.com will have twenty-six titles in print.

Her honors and awards include three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a Guggenheim fellowship, two Ingram Merrill grants, an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and letters, and a nomination for the National Book Award.  She was featured on the Bill Moyers television series The Language of Life.

View the book at the Nine Mile Press