Poems about picnics

In Competition No. 3155 you were invited to supply a poem entitled ‘The Picnic’.

This challenge was prompted by a tweet from picnic-hater @edcumming inviting people to nominate their single worst picnic item. Suggestions included stale warm dry carrot batons, hummus with a skin, supermarket Scotch eggs and gin in a tin that’s been slowly boiled by the sun. So as we face a summer of outdoor socialising, should we all just face the fact that picnics are much nicer in the imagining?

There are clearly fans out there, judging by the entry, which was large and tremendous. The winners, especially tricky to choose this week, take £25 each.

Oh look! Another glossy supplementbabbling away about how meals al frescoare easy — only half an hour well spentand there’s your picnic! Oh, hey-bloody-presto! What Austen slyly dubbed ‘the apparatusof happiness’ (such irony!) is there:plates, napkins and, to magnify your status,a ziggurat of matching Tupperware. This quivering quiche; what frantic kitchen working —indoors and hot and frazzled — shaped your beauty?Who sourced the freekeh and each cherished gherkinand every picnic’s must-have, a clafoutis? I wish you well; green grass, the perfect view —no nettles, thistles, cowpats, ants, to blightall this repast deserves. Meanwhile I’ll chewmy bread and cheese and apple out of sight.D.A. Prince

We spread our blankets on a lawnBeside an autumn wood,And underneath a happy sunUnpacked our picnic food.John looked around contentedlyAnd praising fruitful treesEnthused on autumn’s luxury,Composing lines with ease.We toasted with a cooling wineAnd ate in open airWhile John pronounced the fruit divineIn words beyond compare.His lovely hymn, that picnic grace,His praise for autumn’s spreeWould surely take an honoured placeIn a golden treasury.Frank McDonald

Do you remember the day, Alana?Do you remember the day?And the sun, and the fun when we picnicked as oneUnited, excited and oh, so delighted,Under the boughs of the oak; and the smokeFrom the barbecue’s smouldering coke; and the callsOf the children all dashing and thrashing and splashingAs though they were bathing in sunny Havana,Do you remember the day, Alana?Do you remember the day?And the cooling breeze in the shade of the trees,And the hours we lazed, amazed as we gazedInto each others eyes, Alana,Do you remember the day?And the bliss of the kiss we’ll never forget or regretThat bound us together then and binds us yet!Alan Millard