Poetry does many things. It tells stories, rants, expresses emotions, explores ideas, plays with words, remembers and summons up people or incidents, and so on. But it also sometimes puts into words feelings, perceptions or intuitions which one might feel are impossible to express. Yet somehow a poem can create a hint of or pointer to what otherwise seems impossibly elusive. Some may argue that capturing these echoes from another world is poetry's highest achievement.

Can anyone recommend any poems which seem to achieve this?

Are we on about the ineffable again? ;

I tend to like poems where I understand or have an inkling of what is being said so I'm not a good one for this subject. I'll read with interest what anyone else puts though :)

Dave,
A whole poem is a bit of a task, but here is a stanza from The Ancient Mariner that puts into words things about a Devil-Woman that cannot be put into words

Her eyes were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man`s blood with cold


And (from Kubla Khan) something also `un-sayable`


And all should cry, Beware! beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

These make Edgar Allen Poe sound like a bit of a cissy.