Bombinate #1: bees
20 pages, A5.
£3 (free shipping in UK, int postage varies)
I'll be honest, I had to look up the meaning of 'bombinate':
verb (used without object), bom·bi·nat·ed, bom·bi·nat·ing.1. to make a humming or buzzing noise.
Which is obviously fitting for a zine whose theme for issue #1 is bees, but also fitting for a zine literally buzzing with ideas.
The bee crisis is already a very real problem - in recent years the UK alone has lost three species of bumblebee, and in parts of China apple farmers have been forced to pollinate by hand. Objectively, at this point in time, you could only say things are going to get worse the world over.
Some of the work in Bombinate #1 tackles this issue, while other work takes bees as metaphor, image, narrative: a bumbling encounter between new lovers; feeding sugar water to the dying; two bees on the coffin of great-uncle Evan.
Bombinate #1 contains mainly poetry, alongside a couple of short stories, with illustrations by Mot Collins. The styles are diverse, and give different opportunities to view the same topic through different eyes and different angles. This diversity of content is increased in following issues, and the Bombinate submissions guidelines state they are looking for fiction, non-fiction, essays, plays, flash fiction, poetry, and recipes.
For a reason I can't quite articulate a section of Fionn O’Shea's 'helo this doesn’t have a title' has set up home in my brain:
"there was a post I saw a while ago how you can see in google stats that in every single language that google supports, someone has searched 'where do the birds go when it rains'. The post was about how it's nice that everyone everywhere hopes that the birds are ok when it rains. I hope the bees are ok when it rains."
To extend the image, in a world that is raining hard I'm happy there are places like Bombinate to retreat to.
And don't forget to submit your own work. More info here: https://www.bombinate.space
Review by Nathan Penlington
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