While writing occasional poems in verses and free verse, Jacques Rabemananjara has used the sonnet to express his view of Malagasy identity, of which he offers a new definition. His position is not at all one which bluntly opposes Western forms of poetry and other forms that would be more specific to Madagascar : rather, the poet seems to alternate between political poems, whose form would be more « free », and love poems, which follow Western rules of prosody. The analysis of a collection of free verse – Antsa – and a collection of sonnets –Les Ordalies – intends to trace and shed new light on the evolution in the poet’s writing, as he constantly renegotiates his relation to form.