Every person is born, grows up, does activities, gets married, has a child, gets older and older over time, and then dies. It's a common life, everyone knows that. However, we have different ways of thinking about our lives. Maya Angelo, through her poem titled “When I Think of Myself,” shared the voice of her people and the result of the process of thinking or thinking about life. This is a very interesting poem because we have to read it twice or more to get the true tone and story. When you read the poem for the first time, you will not recognize the meaning of the Mayans and then you will be extremely curious to re-read it carefully until you get the real story of the poem. The poem contrasts the word "laughter" with some words that have an opposite meaning such as "death", "choking", "pain", "death" and "crying". The tone of the poem is a bit sad and ironic. If you don't have the tone, don't worry. Maya is very good at disguising tone. That part that sets the tone? Why did she use the word “laughter” if the tone is less sad and ironic? What is really the full story of the poem? Maya Angelo, through her poem, When I Think of Myself, shared her thoughts on the irony of life. She makes the person speaking in the poem as tough as she is. This sounds like Maya, who is thinking and talking about her life. Maya wrote her poem from the first person perspective, as shown in the first stanza of the poem which uses the pronouns “I” and “myself”. When I think of myself, I almost laugh to death, my life has been a very big joke, a dance that was performed, a song that was spoken, I laughed so hard that I almost died. suffocate when I think of myself. Additionally, the person or narrator is not always Maya herself. The use of the pronouns "I" and "my" who I...... middle of paper......the poem tells a flashback story. The punctuation placed at the end of the last line of each stanza allows us to think and breathe towards the poem. The poem not only consists of several lines of sentences, it is also representative of the thought, feeling, hope and condition of a community, the black community. The main reason for choosing this poem is the opposite condition between the condition of the poem and our current condition. The poem taught us that life is worth too much to waste. Our life here is very fortunate and we should be grateful for that. Works CitedAngelou, Maya. “When I think of myself.” The Poetry Reader's Toolbox. Marc Polonsky, 1998.29.Bloom, Harold. Maya Angelou Bloom's Major Poets, 2001. 34-37.------, ( ), Part Two: “Just Before the End of the World” Summary, Tersedia[online]: http://www.bookrags.com / [ April 2 2014]