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

In reply to Re: pod::usage "-sections" not working by Anonymous Monk
in thread pod::usage "-sections" not working by johnguillory

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
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