"Homer was not great literature at the time he his works were written".
They were not written at all. No written literature existed in the time of Homer.
They were not written at all. No written literature existed in the time of Homer.
If I write a song for my girl, I'm not going to hand her a piece of paper with sheet music and lyrics, I'm going to perform it for her. I may write it down, or I may not.
Of course, composed is a more precise word, but everyone still knows what I mean if I replace it with write.
This is generalising the term writing to the point of uselessness. In your example, you thought of a poem and spoke it. You didn't write it.
Writing is an action. You can memorize, take a mental note, but you are not writing.
(Someone else mentioned Camōes, a portuguese who famously/allegedly saved his writings from a shipwreck by swimming with one arm and using the other to keep the book above water; your interpretation of "writing" is an insult)