Arda Collins is the author of a collection of poems, It Is Daylight (2009), which was awarded the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, The American Poetry Review, jubilat and elsewhere. She is a recipient of the May Sarton Award from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellowship from Yaddo. In 2012–13, she was visting assistant professor of poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Most recently she has taught in the creative writing program at New York University and at the Flying Object art space in Western Massachusetts, where she lives. 

Before earning an master's at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a doctorate in creative writing and literature at the University of Denver, Collins worked as an associate producer for the public television documentary series Frontline and American Experience. While at Smith, she is teaching poetry and working on a new manuscript.