At the end of Poétique de la Relation, a list of "binarities" constitutes what Glissant's philosophy of Relation sets out to reshuffle. Among them, the pair "Lieu commun: lieucommun" is what will be analysed here. Beyond enabling us to survey a vast area of Glissant's oeuvre, it will also lead to the analysis of one of Glissant's most operative metaphors: the "common-place," advancing toward the configuration of an alternative, ever compounding, reality. The first part of this essay was

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... d in the previous issue of Commmonwealth Essays and Studies. To Oakley, analyzing the "Rhetorical Figures of Difference in Heidegger and Glissant," the particular achievement of the latter consists not in just naming and defining concepts, but in devising a way of writing that, in itself, in its very formulation, produces concepts, opens their history and presents them for immediate use. Oakley writes: Whereas Heidegger highlights the poet thinking (i.e. measuring), Glissant emphasizes the poet writing. Glissant's poet is a "builder" of a grammar and syntax, even as he builds inside a particular langue.