“Sacred Objects: Finding the Magic Inside” with Hadara Bar-Nadav

“Sacred Objects: Finding the Magic Inside” with Hadara Bar-Nadav

What objects do you hold sacred? A ring, a key, a house, or a text? This generative workshop assumes that objects hold energy and power in our lives. Consider the torah, dressed in velvet and draped in silver, for which an entire congregation stands, this sacred text that a rabbi will only touch with a pointer (yad). Consider the menorah, the candles, and the glorious lights of Chanukah, the radiant inner lives of these objects, what they see, say, and can reveal to us.

This workshop will focus on uses of imagery—all sensory information—to explore sacred objects in our lives and honor their magic and mystery.  Authors studied may include Bert Meyers, Gertrude Stein, Alicia Ostriker, Lucie Brock-Broido, and others. We will spend time together reading, writing, and sharing.

Workshop will be capped at 25 participants.

Workshop Date and Costs

December 21, 2025, 11:00-1:00 PM EST

$72—standard registration
$60—18% discounted registration for Yetzirah Members (you can become a member here)

Please note: this workshop will be limited to 25 participants.

As we want our offerings to be accessible to all, there is a pay-what-you-can option if this pricing is a hardship.

About Hadara

Hadara Bar-Nadav is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, the Lucille Medwick Award from the Poetry Society of America, a fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and other honors. She is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Animal Is Chemical (Four Way Books, 2024), awarded the Levis Prize in Poetry, selected by Jericho Brown; The New Nudity (Saturnalia Books, 2017); Lullaby (with Exit Sign) (Saturnalia Books, 2013), awarded the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize; The Frame Called Ruin (New Issues, 2012), Editor’s Selection/Runner Up for the Green Rose Prize; and A Glass of Milk to Kiss Goodnight (Margie/Intuit House, 2007), awarded the Margie Book Prize.  She is also the author of two chapbooks, Fountain and Furnace (Tupelo Press, 2015), awarded the Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, and Show Me Yours (Laurel Review/Green Tower Press 2010), awarded the Midwest Poets Series Prize. In addition, she is co-author with Michelle Boisseau of the best-selling textbook Writing Poems, 8^th ed. (Pearson, 2011). Her poetry has appeared in the American Poetry Review, The Believer, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. A current reader for POETRY, she is a Professor of English and teaches in the MFA program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.