I say na 'tis best to be single, But ae thing's to me unco clear: Far better sit lane by the ingle Than thole what some wives hae to bear."
[2] She and her sister Catherine established a boarding school in Musselburgh, Lothian, but their attempt was a failure, possibly due to uncomplimentary poems that Picken published about local figures.
[4] Picken is best known for the comic poem "An Auld Friend wi' a New Face", which is about the hazards of marriage from a woman's point of view, providing advice to unmarried women about the benefits of remaining single.
This poem, alongside one entitled "The Death Watch" were included in James Grant Wilson's 1876 anthology The Poets and Poetry of Scotland.
Sixteen more have been recovered, three in Montreal newspapers and thirteen in the possession of her brother Henry's great-great-grandson, with the earliest dating from 1829.