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Funk &
Wagnalls
Dark brown
spines, gold
lettering, a new
volume $3.99
every week,
stacked in the
endcap across
from the grocery
store checkout.
Including the two
Index volumes and
the Medical
Reference
Supplement, it
took us just over
six months to
gather all the
world’s knowledge
in 1985, and there
it sat—two solid
rows of reality
sagging the shelves
above the family
desk. Every few
days, I’d climb
the chair, take
down a volume,
flip through at
random: Bernoulli,
Jacob; Heisenberg,
Werner; Pascal,
Blaise.
Sometimes, my
searches were
more guided:
Jesus, Cowboys,
Penis, Breasts.
Those books let
me in on some
secret knowing.
But like many
childhood loves,
this one proved
fickle. When Mama
would drive
me to the white-
columned county
library in
Spartanburg, I’d
rush first thing to
the reference
section to marvel
at the complete
dark-blue set of
Britannicas. I’d
open them there
on the carpet and
compare the
entries to our
F&Ws back home.
Without fail, the
Britannicas proved
more complete—a
deeper, denser,
more serious
knowing, one that
I knew we could
never afford.
Donovan McAbee is a poet, songwriter, and essayist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, TIME, The Sun, The Poetry Review, Poetry London, and a variety of other places. He grew up in Inman, South Carolina, a small town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a PhD in Contemporary Poetry from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Donovan lives in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife and their two children.
“Funk & Wagnalls” was published in the collection Holy the Body by Texas Review Press on March 4, 2026. You can purchase your own copy here.
