It didn't seem worthwhile to mention this earlier, but now that people are throwing anecdotes around I might as well add mine: Prufrock is one of my very favorite poems. It's wonderfully evocative, generates emotional torque deftly without getting maudlin, and it's packed with beautiful phrases: there's hardly a line in there that doesn't have something that'd scan well as the title of another work. Granted, the theme of middle-aged middle-class frustration isn't universally palatable, but if you can stomach that it's got a lot to recommend it.

It's also pretty straightforward as Eliot goes, really; if you're looking for examples, The Waste Land is just as beloved of English departments and a lot more opaque and less conventional.