use strict;
use warnings;
use XML::LibXML;

local $/ = "\n\n";

my $doc = XML::LibXML::Document->createDocument();

my $root = $doc->createElement("body");
$doc->setDocumentElement( $root );

while ( my $para = <DATA> )
{
    chomp $para;
    my $p = $doc->createElement("p");
    my $txt = $doc->createTextNode( $para );

    $p->appendChild($txt);
    $root->appendChild($p);
}

print $doc->serialize(1);

__DATA__
Some arbitrary text > some fixed text & that's okay.

XHTML is fun with L<XML::LibXML>.