Contribution to an edited volume published as a special issue of the peer-review journal Kernos (deriving from a conference held in Lyon in 2015). My article focuses on a subject that has been little dealt with until now: the fact that certain hymnic addresses, inserted into various poetic genres (comedy, tragedy, Greek and Latin lyric poetry, epigrams), are dedicated not to gods but to material objects (jugs, musical instruments, tree branches, lamps, etc.). The approach developed is situated at the crossroads of literary, dramaturgical and anthropological studies. I demonstrate that through its own stylistic features, the hymnic speech both acknowledges and confers on the object a capacity for action, which in turn is likely to transform the initial performance of the lyric performer or scenic actor. This investigation then opens up avenues of research at the intersection of poetics and the history of religions: the fluidity of the ontological status of the divine object in these poetic texts echoes ancient religious practices in which statues, relics, or other non-anthropomorphic material objects (stones, posts, or pillars) were honored as possible anchors of the divine presence.