 Though he doesn't discuss the exact nature of his mental illness in the poem, he does describe his hospitalization in a mental institution.Lowell's admission of having spent time in a mental institution was considered a brave one to make when he published the poem in 1959, when public disclosure about mental illness was a serious social taboo.Lowell wrote the first draft of the poem at the end of January 1958 while at the McLean Hospital in Belmont near Boston.