John P. Portelli treads along those nebulous cliff-edges where forgetfulness attempts to pick at the treacherous scabs of recall, capturing the vertigo of a distant childhood as it inches outward into the land’s end of metaphor.
– Prof. Norbert Bugeja

Portelli’s gorgeous poems speak of exile, searching, and loss in such a way that the reader becomes one with the village of his birth, the cliffs, the smells, his frail body, and the sea.
– Jennifer Hosein, Tiohtia:ke/Montreal-born writer, visual artist and educator,
author A Map of Rain Days

.. the poems of Once I Forget restore our faith in the transcendence of the lyric, in the power of song and secular psalm.
– Karen Shenfeld, Canadian writer and film-maker, author The Law of Return