« I have chosen the verset of the rivers, the winds and the forests / The assonance of the plains and rivers, chosen the blood rhythm of my stripped body / Chosen the tremulous echo of the balafongs, and the chord of strings and brasses [...] chosen / Swing swing yes swing ! » . Thus does the Senegalese poet Léopold Sédar Senghor define the originality of his poetry ; despite the influence exerted upon him by Baudelaire and his use of fixed forms, as by Paul Claudel and Saint-John Perse with respect to their use of verset : it is fundamentally inspired by African orality. This article shall show how, through this re-adaptation of the « blank » verset, Senghor takes his revenge on history in which « black men were seen as the dark children of sin, Cham’s cursed offspring, the embodiment of the fallen angel » (Jacques Rabemananjara), and how, freed from the aesthetic constraints of the verset, he articulates a new poetic form.