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Cultural Identity Healing Journey

Reclaiming My Name: How I Broke Free From the Past and Found Myself Again

April 23, 2025
Zen Tenkamenin looking at Cleopatra statue

The Power in a Name

For most of my life, my name felt like a label I didn’t choose.
A symbol of survival passed down through generations scarred by colonialism, trauma, and expectations I never agreed to.

My birth name—Denise—was given to me before I had the chance to define myself. It was the name of a child molded by generational wounds, by silence, by roles I never consented to play. It was the name that echoed through criticisms, dismissals, and moments of invisibility.

But names are not just names.
They carry energy. They carry history. They tell stories we sometimes have to rewrite ourselves.

When I Chose My Name

I didn’t change my name to become someone new.
I changed it to come home to myself.

Zen Tenkamenin is the name I chose.
Not for reinvention—but for reclamation.

“Zen” came to me during my loc journey, a time when I was peeling away the layers of shame tied to Eurocentric standards of beauty and learning to love myself—fully, naturally, and unapologetically. It became more than a nickname. It became a mirror of who I was becoming: balanced, grounded, self-possessed.

“Tenkamenin” is a name that holds weight.
It honors King Tenkamenin of Ghana, a ruler known for wisdom, justice, and devotion to his people. That name represents lineage, integrity, and sovereignty. It is a name carried by my partner—someone who walks through life with intention, and who inspired me to anchor myself in legacy, not loss.

Together, Zen Tenkamenin is not just a name.
It’s a declaration:

I am not what was done to me.
I am not who the world told me to be.
I am who I choose to become.

The Weight of the Names We’re Given

The names we’re born into often carry the weight of other people’s stories.
Sometimes they echo trauma, unmet expectations, or family roles that were handed to us like scripts we never auditioned for.

The name I was given at birth told a story of who I was supposed to be—but never who I truly was. It echoed my mother’s voice more than my own. It fit the version of me that was easy for others to control, categorize, or criticize.

Reclaiming my name wasn’t just a personal choice—it was a sacred act.
A quiet rebellion.
A breath I had been holding for years.

A Name Rooted in Spiritual Transformation

The number 13—often misunderstood or feared—became symbolic for me as I moved through my own transformation. In many cultures, it represents change, death and rebirth, and the cyclical nature of life.

In my memoir, there are 13 chapters—each one peeling back a layer of my story like the skin of an onion.
Painful, raw, revealing.
But necessary.
Because healing requires truth.
And truth begins with naming things—including ourselves.

Reclaiming Identity, Word by Word

Every time I sign my name—Zen Tenkamenin—I remind myself:

  • I am not their version of me.
  • I am not bound to the stories that tried to define me.
  • I am the author now.

And I don’t need permission to exist on my own terms.

Final Thoughts

Choosing this name was one of the most sacred acts of healing I’ve ever done.
It wasn’t about forgetting the past. It was about honoring who I became in spite of it.

Zen Tenkamenin is my voice.
It’s my truth.
It’s my power wrapped into two words.

✨ Have you ever felt disconnected from the name you were given?
✨ What would it mean to reclaim your identity on your own terms?comments. Let’s talk about reclaiming identity.

Cultural Identity Poetry Reviews

Revolutionary Poetry: Knives at Noon

May 3, 2024
a dark figure standing firm with clenched fists against a stormy horizon of palm trees

The poem “Knives at Noon” grapples with the heavy themes of resentment and forbearance, capturing the tension between the anger of Black people in the Caribbean and the pressure to maintain dignity in the face of oppression. It opens with the striking image of Black people throwing giant trees at the “sweltering whiteness of the sky.” The whiteness of the sky here isn’t just about the color—it symbolizes the pervasive force of White oppression, something Césaire emphasizes when he writes about the “blackness which they carry in their hearts.” This isn’t just skin-deep; it’s a spiritual resistance, a defiance that runs in their veins.

In the opening stanza, Césaire brings in the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Cluny, a Roman Catholic group known for their missionary work in the Caribbean. The nuns lathering their coifs with tropical soap feels almost ironic—a symbol of colonial imposition under the guise of ‘cleansing’ others. Césaire calls out this mindset with lines like “emptying the sky of the smug cotton-wool which muffles [his] words,” which feels like a direct jab at the condescending attitude of white saviorism and the way Black voices have often been muted by the forces of colonization.

But here’s where Césaire gets even more layered. Despite all the anger, despite the bitterness of centuries of oppression, he doesn’t fall into a cycle of violent rage. Instead, in the third stanza, he speaks of spitting “bitterly” at those who have insulted and starved his people, calling the Lord “callous” for turning a blind eye to their suffering. Yet, there’s a shift in tone when he describes his own whistling as “gentle.” This is a fascinating contrast—a man who’s been pushed to his breaking point, yet refuses to let his anger consume him.

The last few lines speak to a resolve to stand tall, even amidst wounds—“to stand upright in [his] wounds.” It’s as if Césaire is saying, yes, there’s anger, but there’s also something more powerful than violence: the resilience to keep moving forward with dignity, hands free of rancor. It’s a call for a future that isn’t defined by bitterness but by hope. And when the poem ends with the Blacks “singing,” it’s not just an act of rebellion, but a form of survival—a refusal to let hatred define them.

The title, “Knives at Noon,” holds weight beyond the literal. Noon, after all, is both a time—mid-day—and a metaphor for the peak, the highest point. I think Césaire is signaling that the anger of the oppressed has reached its zenith, that breaking point where revolt seems inevitable. And yet, the choice to remain “gentle” despite the knives they could wield is a testament to the strength of restraint and the long road to true liberation. Césaire paints a picture of a people who are tired, hurt, but not broken—dreaming of a day when their faces will be free of shame.