Clifford Richardson Bragdon

Clifford Richardson Bragdon of St. Louis graduated from Saint Albans Academy and Amherst College. While in Amherst he worked summers as a counselor at Camp Bonny Dune on Bass River, Cape Cod. He also pitched for Yarmouth on its semi-pro baseball team. He met Joanna Davenport of Beverly, Massachusetts when her family summered on High Bank Road just across from the Bonny Dune camp. She was the youngest girl in a family of six and was studying at Wheaton College at the time.

Love and Marriage

When Clifford (known then as Lefty) returned to Amherst he began to compose the love sonnets to Joanna that are published in this book. Shortly after they married, the family summered on Cape Cod for many years and retired there.

His Career and Poetry

Clifford Bragdon taught at Smith College as Chairman of the Department of Education and Child Study, all the time writing poetry as gifts for Joanna's birthdays and Christmas. Clifford chose, from all his work, the poetry he collected here in Diverse Vanities. I, his son, have the privilege of publishing it.