AN AMATEUR poet from Newport will represent South Wales in a hunt to find the nation’s best pub poet.

Stephen Morris, a father-of-three from Stow Park, entered the regional heat of the Vintage Inn “Bard of the Bar” competition after seeing an advert in The Dragonfly pub at Cleppa Park.

Despite never writing poetry before Mr Morris’s verse about drinking summer ale during the wet Welsh summer impressed the judges and he will now go head to head with 23 other poets from around the UK.

Mr Morris wrote his winning piece after enjoying a pint of the Brakspear Oxford Gold ale during a family meal on a wet evening last month.

Mr Morris, 48, said: “I just thought about the irony of drinking a very nice summer beer whilst it was pouring down with rain outside for the third summer in a row.”

He added he was extremely surprised to be selected and would be delighted if he went on to win.

The poems of all 23 regional finalists will be loaded onto Vintage Inn’s website, where members of the public can vote for their favourite until the end of August. The winner will be crowned the national pub poet, and win a weekend trip to London.

To view Mr Morris’s poem in full go to www.vintageinn.co.uk.

Sample from Stephen Morris's winning poem: Oh Wales, you land of song and hills and rain Where has your summer gone, and why the pain Of Climate Change's lie of Global Warming, Where only pub's warmth keeps us safe till morning?

Surely the misery that this failed summer can but muster Will only be assuaged by Oxford Gold's pure lustre.