DAISY STEELE

Goodbye Books

Goodbye Joe Sacco see you in the afterlife
Goodbye Cambridge Literary Press
You did a good job alright
Of making me seem well read
Goodbye LOGO DESIGN and
WHAT THEY DON’T TEACH YOU AT DESIGN SCHOOL
(I didn’t go to design school)
And goodbye the BIGGER THOUGHTS
Of my permanently tanned tech lords
Who wrote a ‘crazy book’
About how to take over the world
And didn’t

So long to the history of infographics
And sayonara to that book of photography
Naked women in New York I gawped at
Before I’d even had sex

Farewell Jack Reacher and the easy reads
Jilly Cooper and reading
How humans and horses interbreed
From my sister-in-law’s sagging shelves
And across the Alps
To me
How I marvelled at your relentless simplicity
Sentence structure that just said:
I am Reacher. I pack only a toothbrush.
I fuck and kill it’s all the same to me

Goodbye Freud
The three volumes from an ex
I never even opened you
I had Jungian psychoanalysis instead

I’ll hold on to a few
Of course
Andrea Dworkin, and her seminal: INTERCOURSE
But I’m done with polyamory
And The Body Keeps the Score
Oh
I meant, Polysecure

Christopher Makos gets to stay
And so does SWISS GRAPHIC DESIGN
Where clean ski slopes pair
With Helvetica nicely aligned.

I’ll keep most of the stuff on Kurdistan and war
It just seems strange to pack that up
And send it off
The Kurds have no friends but the mountains
And my bookshelf.

But those heavy art volumes
That say nothing but
The words on the column
LOOK

The architecture of my mind

Dispersed.
All to improve
My Vinted credit line.

Daisy Steele (b. 1986) is a writer from Burton-on-Trent. They hold an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths (2018).

Their work spans poetry, flash fiction, and prose, exploring queer identity, power, and intimacy. Their research in Rojava (2016) has been featured by the Centre for Investigative Journalism. Their writing was long-listed for the Nico Colchester Fellowship (2016) and reached the second round of the Bridport Prize (2025). Their poetry has been featured in Aftershock Review’s ‘Dirty Laundry (2026).

They currently live in Munich, Germany.

Instagram: @daisy_steele_index