Separated by centuries, races, national identities and countless literary movements, the English poet and artist William Blake and the Nigerian poet and playwright Wole Soyinka find still common points in their writings. . They have somewhat of a thematic overlap; Both Blake and Soyinka address an issue of race in their poems “The Little Black Boy” and “Telephone Conversation,” respectively. The first tells the story of an African child who deeply realizes that only after death can the different human races be equalized. This last poem aptly describes a telephone conversation between a white landlady and an African man who had recently settled in England. “The Little Black Boy” was published in 1789 while “Telephone Conversation” was originally published in 1960. The poems intertwine despite their historical separation and thus engage with history in the same way. “The Little Black Boy” and “Telephone Conversation,” while varying considerably in rhythm, rhyme, and syntax, share their quizzical tone, racial imagery, and dialogic speech acts that unite figures of innocence with those of experience. This polymerization creates an innocence/experience binary allowing the poems to generate meaning in the same way. Each resists the thematic topos of their era in order to didactically reframe the issue of racial equality in a pre- and post-civil rights era. Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience are, above all, songs. They are also “Christian poems, and they are often consciously didactic” (Bottrall 180). William Blake is interested in history in many of his poems, its effect generally being subtle and religious. It’s his use of epigrammatic moments that casts a wider net. What makes Blake unique is his identity as ...... middle of paper ...... everyone confronts an epigrammatic moment in history, one in the 1780s and the other in the 1960s, and show that pre- and post-civil rights, a system of power still exists. In each poem, the story is given new life, a new experience. Each directs a didactic and experiential attitude toward history by subverting the stereotype of black inexperience. Works Cited Bentley Jr., GE The Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2001. Print. Bottrall, Margaret. William Blake: Songs of Innocence and Experience. London: Macmillin, 1989. Print.Jones, Eldred Durosimi. Wole Soyinka. New York: Twayne, 1973. Print.Maduakor, Obi. Wole Soyinka: An introduction to his writings. New York: Garland, 1986.Print.Wilson, Kathleen. The island race: English, empire and gender in the 18th century. London: Routledge, 2003. Print.