Towards the end of his life , in 1963 , Stephanie Burt notes : " Randall 's behavior began to change . Approaching his fiftieth birthday , he seems to have worried deeply about his advancing age . . . After President Kennedy was shot , Randall spent days in front of the television weeping . Sad to the point of inertia , Randall sought help from a Cincinnati psychiatrist , who prescribed the antidepressant drug Elavil . " The drug made him manic and in 1965 , he was hospitalized and taken off Elavil . At this point , he was no longer manic , but he became depressed again . Burt also states that in April '' The New York Times '' published a " viciously condescending " review by Joseph Bennett of Jarrell 's most recent book of poems , '' The Lost World '' , which said " his work is thoroughly dated ; prodigiousness encouraged by an indulgent and sentimental Mama-ism ; its overriding feature is doddering infantilism . " Soon afterwards , Jarrell slashed a wrist and returned to the hospital . After leaving the hospital , he stayed at home that summer under his wife 's care and returned to teaching at the University of North Carolina that fall
President Kennedy was shot
Assassination of John F. Kennedy
Randall Jarrell