In the work of Guillevic, the status of rhetoric is paradoxical. All the work is characterised by an imperative of reality. The most important is simplicity. So, this poetry, which is called to reality, constantly distrusts rhetoric : indeed, rhetoric could overshadow the reality of the things and increase the distance between these two poles, that are the experience of the world, and its implementation in word. The poems, dense and tight on themselves, appear clearly as a challenge to rhetoric.However, in the work of Guillevic, the notion of rhetoric is not totally forgotten. On the contrary, we can note some mutations of the notion. The defining values are modified. Indeed, Guillevic is considered as a poet who spontaneously turned himself to the world and to the objects, but, first, this contact with reality is very difficult. This contact needs to be built or to be modified because, in the beginning, the world frightens. It is reluctant to welcome the poet. That is why Guillevic must find a strength in the language in order to build or to appease this relation between the subject and the world. And, paradoxically, distrust big rhetoric and its eloquence enables to do that, because this distrust puts a tension in the poem. First, this tension transforms the language of the poem and makes it as a solid to cling to. Then, the figures of speech no more belong to the order of representation but they belong to this necessity of a better relation between the subject, the language and the world. The poem tends to literality and to ‘disfiguration’. So, it is no more about a superficial rhetoric ; the rhetoric is now fundamental and joins the language and the being. The experience of the world is more important than the meaning, so that we can say that the notion of rhetoric is no longer connected to the concepts of conceptuality, representation and meaning. And we can also note that Guillevic replaces the metaphor by the ellipse : distrust rhetoric opens in the poem an empty place where these three elements that are the language, the poetic subject and the world can revive.