My grandmother - Shakespeare's Monkeys

my grandmother

Jane Eckert was sent to relatives
in a mining town
in Western Pennsylvania
when she was five
and her father died
digging coal in Germany.

there were too many
children,
too many mouths,
and America,it was said,
had food for everyone.

she was bonded
to a merchant
in White Ash.
he paid her passage,
she paid him eleven years

until my grandfather
took her,
in violation of her servitude,
to marry and mother
Ethel, then Eunice.

she lived all her life
in Verona.
she never saw
her mother again.

Rene -
I find this to be a very intriguing poem! I love the specifics that you have used as it grounds the reader in a time and place. I would love to see some descriptives though. A few well placed adjectives would give me some color in my mind...however, if you wish, you could use darkness like blacks and grays to keep a darker vision for the reader because this poem has some seriousness to it that needs to not be lost. The never again seeing her mother brought tears to my soul....
-----
Rene'

I am orbiting, I don't know where, but I am orbiting something!

Norm -
She was an amazing woman.

Tracey -

I just lap up tributes to ancestors as I so love and miss my grandmother in particular.

I read this as the start of something; I feel like there are a few more home-hitting points you could share (about what made her amazing) to really drive her into the hearts of your readers.

Funny, when you mention Verona you may mean Italy, but there's a town not far from me here in NJ by the same name, so my connection goes straight to that town!

I think her connection with her own mother (whom she never saw again) needs to appear earlier in the poem to make the ending more meaningful.

Those are my tired thoughts of the night!