diff --git a/poetry/repositories/pypi_repository.py b/poetry/repositories/pypi_repository.py
index 16105992a1c..326256d2baa 100644
--- a/poetry/repositories/pypi_repository.py
+++ b/poetry/repositories/pypi_repository.py
@@ -25,7 +25,6 @@
 from poetry.core.version.markers import parse_marker
 from poetry.locations import REPOSITORY_CACHE_DIR
 from poetry.utils._compat import Path
-from poetry.utils._compat import to_str
 from poetry.utils.helpers import download_file
 from poetry.utils.helpers import temporary_directory
 from poetry.utils.patterns import wheel_file_re
@@ -181,7 +180,7 @@ def search(self, query):
 
             try:
                 result = Package(name, version, description)
-                result.description = to_str(description.strip())
+                result.description = str(description.strip())
                 results.append(result)
             except ParseVersionError:
                 self._log(
diff --git a/poetry/utils/_compat.py b/poetry/utils/_compat.py
index 937f9b300e6..d77b35c11b1 100644
--- a/poetry/utils/_compat.py
+++ b/poetry/utils/_compat.py
@@ -263,26 +263,6 @@ def encode(string, encodings=None):
     return string.encode(encodings[0], errors="ignore")
 
 
-def to_str(string):
-    if isinstance(string, str) or not isinstance(string, (unicode, bytes)):
-        return string
-
-    if PY2:
-        method = "encode"
-    else:
-        method = "decode"
-
-    encodings = ["utf-8", "latin1", "ascii"]
-
-    for encoding in encodings:
-        try:
-            return getattr(string, method)(encoding)
-        except (UnicodeEncodeError, UnicodeDecodeError):
-            pass
-
-    return getattr(string, method)(encodings[0], errors="ignore")
-
-
 def list_to_shell_command(cmd):
     return " ".join(
         '"{}"'.format(token) if " " in token and token[0] not in {"'", '"'} else token