It's not noticeable in many English translations, but Lamentations makes heavy use of the acrostic technique of Hebrew poetry. As [a note in the NET Bible](http://classic.net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Lam&chapter=1#v1) mentions:

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> Chapters [1-4](http://classic.net.bible.org/passage.php?passage=Lam%201--4) are arranged in alphabetic-acrostic structures; the acrostic pattern does not appear in chapter [5](http://classic.net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Lam&chapter=5). Each of the 22 verses in chapters [1, 2 and 4](http://classic.net.bible.org/passage.php?passage=Lam%201,2,4) begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, while the acrostic appears in triplicate in the 66 verses in chapter [3](http://classic.net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Lam&chapter=3). The acrostic pattern does not appear in chapter [5](http://classic.net.bible.org/bible.php?book=Lam&chapter=5), but its influence is felt in that it has 22 verses, the same as the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
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Wikipedia (referencing Lee, Archie C.C. (2008). "Book of Lamentations". In Sakenfeld, Katherine Doob. The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 3. Abingdon Press, pp. 566–567.) [mentions](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Lamentations#Composition):

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> One clue that there may be multiple authors is that the gender and situation of the first-person witness changes: the narration is feminine in the first and second lamentation, and masculine in the third, while the fourth and fifth are eyewitness reports of Jerusalem's destruction.
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Finally, in an article titled ["Lamentations: The Fall of Jerusalem"](https://bible.org/seriespage/lamentations-fall-jerusalem), Donald E. Curtis points out that each chapter uses a slightly different variation of the acrostic structure. He interprets that as a literary device:

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> In literary terms, I believe the author of Lamentations invokes this structure to emulate the cycle of tears during a time of mourning. In the collapse of the acrostic pattern, there is a loss of control.
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But I can see an equally compelling argument that the variations are a result of separate compositions authored at different times.

Ignoring for the moment the [authorship question](https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/12897/who-wrote-lamentations), does the internal evidence suggest that the chapters of Lamentations began, like the chapters of Psalms, as separate written works that were later composed into a single document?