Gival Poetry Prize, 2006
Independent Publisher Awards, Silver Medal, 2007
Adirondack Center for Writing Poetry Award Co-Winner, 2007
Eric Hoffer Awards, Honorable Mention, 2007
The Origin of the Milky Way
“Barbara Ungar’s erudite, gutsy, read-’em-to-your-friends The Origins of the Milky Way marvels at the entire process of gestation, from the strange and beatific invasion of pregnancy to the division back into independent selves. Deceptively accessible, the poems are crafted and clever without losing heart or depth.… If I had to recommend one book to give all your friends on this subject, The Origin of the Milky Way would be my pick.”—Nancy White
“Ungar’s mesoblastic poetry refreshes the tattered Modern Soul!” —Sparrow
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Praise
“Barbara Louise Ungar’s The Origin of the Milky Way is a fearless, unflinching collection about birth and motherhood, the transformation of bodies. Ungar’s poems are honestly brutal, candidly tender. Their primal immediacy and intense intimacy are realized through her dazzling sense of craft. Ungar delivers a wonderful, sensuous, visceral poetry.”—Denise Duhamel
“From the very first poem, ‘Embryology,’ the reader is pulled into the magical and heady experience of conception. And one suddenly becomes keenly aware that the title of this collection reflects on far more than the galaxy containing our own solar system.… Ungar has touched on something vital to all of us—‘in the last, we grow and do not know / how or who is holding us, yet we are held.’”—Donna J. Gelagotis Lee, judge of the 2006 Gival Press Poetry Award
Poems
“The Origin of the Milky Way”
Painters and Poets
“Why There Aren’t More Poems About Toddlers”
The Coachella Review
Reviews
Sow’s Ear Poetry Review
Rabbit Reader
Kveller