John Williams on Poetry

I am reading John Williams's wonderful historical novel, "Augustus." Here's his take on poetry that he puts in the mouth of Horace in a letter to Livy: [T]he end [of a poem] that I discover at last is not the end that I conceived at first. For every solution entails new choices, and every choice made poses new problems to which solutions must be found, and so on and on....The poet is always surprised at where his poem has gone.