© 2025 Kansas City Public Radio
NPR in Kansas City
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

LISTEN: Andrew Gordon Rogers On Finding God In A Gas Station

Laura Spencer
/
KCUR

"I think once you start writing — and you really love it — you can't stop doing it," says Andrew Gordon Rogers, who graduated with a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

"Every form that I can think of, you know I've tried short stories, poetry, non-fiction, creative non-fiction, and it's all fun to me." 

Rogers grew up Catholic, and the Stations of the Cross — 14 visual representations of Jesus's final hours — figured prominently in his childhood. In a series of poems, he combines these stops of meditation and reflection with something you'll see on almost every corner: gas stations. 

"Because there's something, especially in modern society, there's something about the gas station that's been exalted," he says.

Rogers's writing has appeared in Kiosk, The Houston Literary Review, Counterexample Poetics, and First Stop Fiction. He also posts it on his blog, Background Noise. Rogers is currently at work on a novel, and finishing his first collection of poems, Stations

All of our WORD readings, including bonus tracks by some poets, are archived on SoundCloud.

Laura Spencer is staff writer/editor at the Kansas City Public Library and a former arts reporter at KCUR.
No matter what happens in Washington D.C., Kansas City needs KCUR. And KCUR needs you.

Our ability to report local news — accurate, independent and paywall-free — depends on you. Donate now to support fact-based news.