Dear AZ:

You wrote:
> a. John writes poems not poorly.
> b. He talked to me not kindly.
>
> c. John writes poems, not poorly.
> d. He talked to me, not kindly.
>
> e. John writes poems, and not poorly.
> f. He talked to me, and not kindly.
>
>
> Which of the above sentences is grammatically correct?
>
A-d sound awkward in English. We would normally use the emphatic tense with the negative: “John does not write poems poorly.”

E and f would be used for emphasis. While a comma is fine, you usually see such sentences with a dash for emphasis: “He talked to me–and not kindly!” Usually when we speak of a person’s tone, we use the verb to speak rather than to talk: “He spoke to me–and not kindly!”

Native English speakers would most likely use such a construction with the type of understatement called litotes: “He spoke to me–and not unkindly.”