From book cover: *Fighting Kite* narrates, in verse, the life of Martin Avila Gotera — son, trickster, soldier, schizophrenic, visionary, lawyer, workingman, father — a life that glimmers like a node, a shimmery knot, a glowing nexus, of the shared histories of the Philippines and the United States. *Fighting Kite* also unveils how parents' lives shape, shade, and sharpen their children's days and nights: a son remembering a father, brilliant and troubled, tormented and wise.