tangent, thank you, that makes perfect sense. I have tried the following code and am now getting an error regarding "Can't use string ("0") as an ARRAY ref while "strict refs" in use at <path to writer.pm> line 141". I have tried adding the use strict; and declaring $x/$y/$dummy, but did not help.
The following code is what I am using to try to get it to work:

use Geo::Shapefile::Writer;
use List::Util qw(pairmap);

$shape = Geo::Shapefile::Writer->new("Temp", 'POLYGON', [COL1 => 'C', 
+10],);
my @coords = (0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0);
my @pairs = pairmap { [ $a, $b ] } @coords;

# Checking to make sure pairs look correct
foreach $dummy (@pairs)
{
  ($x, $y) = @$dummy;
  print "$x, $y\n";
}

$shape->add_shape(\@pairs, {Col1 => "Dumb1"});
$shape->finalize();
[download]

Looking at Geo::Shapefile::Writer try adding brackets around \@pairs like this

$shape->add_shape([\@pairs], {Col1 => "Dumb1"});
[download]

poj