AN OXFORD schoolgirl's poem about the crack in a 4,000-year-old jug is to be made into a film.

Shakira Morar's poem has also been translated into Arabic and will be published in a poetry anthology by the Foreign Office.

Poetry Society director Judith Palmer described it as an 'incredible' poem with an 'arresting' central image.

Shakira, 17, from Headington School, was one of 60 Oxford secondary school children who wrote poems for this year's Poetry for Peace contest.

The year-long, Arts Council-funded project aimed to build links between the English and Arabic-speaking communities in Oxford.

Iraqi poet Adnan al-Sayegh and Oxford poet Jenny Lewis worked with 11 to 17-year-olds at Oxford Spires Academy, the Sudanese Saturday School, Headington School and Cherwell School.

All the children wrote poems inspired by artefacts in the Ashmolean Museum's Ancient Near East Gallery – including Shakira's cracked jug – around themes of 'heritage' and 'peace'.

The poems were judged by both poets and Judith Palmer of the Poetry Society.

Five winners and the overall best poem were announced at the Ashmolean on Sunday.

Speaking at the event, Ms Palmer said: "Choosing an overall winner was almost impossible because the young writers employed very different approaches – all successful.

"There was some very clever and polished writing, and some amazing phrases.

"In the end I selected as our winner an open, spacious and subtle poem that proved incredibly memorable.

"It employs an arresting central image that places the object at its very centre, vividly imagining the lives it touches.

"It met the brief brilliantly and will translate into a fine film."

Shakira's poem, entitled The Cracked Jug, was inspired by a pot in the Near East Gallery which dates from 1,800BC Mesopotamia – modern day Iraq.

It imagines the jug being used by a girl to collect water, before a cataclysmic event strikes her village, leaving the pot with a crack that would stay with it for the next 4,000 years.

The other winners were 17-year-old Tamsin Rodgers from Headington School with her poem 'Spectators'; Simon Rood, 13, from Cherwell School, with 'Fragments'; Lily Altohamy, 12, from the Sudanese Saturday School with 'Peace', and Ibrahim Karsani, 12, Oxford Spires Academy with 'The Language of Happiness'.

All five have been translated into Arabic and will be published in the Poetry for Peace 2016 Anthology by the Foreign Office on World Poetry Day, March 21.

The Poetry Society's "Film Poem" of Shakira's work will be unveiled on the same day.