FYI, this is how your failing pod is parsed

$ perl -MPod::Simple::DumpAsXML -e  " Pod::Simple::DumpAsXML->filter(s
+hift)->any_errata_seen" udge
<Document start_line="5">
  <head1 start_line="5">
    SYNOPSIS here&#39;s the main usage stuff
  </head1>
  <head1 start_line="8">
    SPECIAL special usage stuff here...
  </head1>
</Document>
[download]

Corrected pod, like toolic wrote, with the head sections being one word strings :)

$ perl -MPod::Simple::DumpAsXML -e  " Pod::Simple::DumpAsXML->filter(s
+hift)->any_errata_seen" udge
<Document start_line="5">
  <head1 start_line="5">
    SYNOPSIS
  </head1>
  <VerbatimFormatted start_line="7" xml:space="preserve">
         here&#39;s the main usage stuff
  </VerbatimFormatted>
  <head1 start_line="9">
    SPECIAL
  </head1>
  <VerbatimFormatted start_line="11" xml:space="preserve">
        special usage stuff here...
  </VerbatimFormatted>
</Document>
[download]

In pod, empty line is paragraph separator, perlpod, perlpodspec