Diverse Vanities

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.
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. Clifford Bragdon taught at Smith College
as Chairman of the Department of Education and Child Study, all
the time writing poetry as gifts for Joannas 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.